Independent targeted sponsored content management system and method

ABSTRACT

A system may include a database configured with individual partitions, one of the partitions corresponding to a sponsored content campaign of a social network. The system may further include multiple servers each communicatively coupled to the database, and each configured to implement a campaign having a campaign termination criterion. Each of the servers may include a processor configured to track sponsored content event data received from a user device based on the campaign and transmit the event data to the database and terminate the campaign based on a comparison of the event data as received from a partition of the database corresponding to the campaign and an estimation of event data not received from the database. The database may be configured to store the event data as received from the servers in the partition corresponding to the campaign upon receipt of the event data.

PRIORITY

This application claims priority to U.S. Provisional Application No.61/860,393, “INDEPENDENT TARGETED SPONSORED CONTENT MANAGEMENT SYSTEMAND METHOD”, filed Jul. 31, 2013, which is incorporated herein in itsentirety.

This application claims priority to U.S. Provisional Application No.61/860,371, “INDEPENDENT TARGETED SPONSORED CONTENT MANAGEMENT SYSTEM”,filed Jul. 31, 2013, which is incorporated herein in its entirety.

TECHNICAL FIELD

The subject matter disclosed herein generally relates to a system forindependently targeting sponsored content.

BACKGROUND

Contemporary social networks display content from a variety of sources.Member profiles, user messages and comments, information from groups andcompanies, advertisements, and the like can combine to create theoverall content that constitutes at least some of the content that canbe displayed on a web page to users of the social network. Some of thecontent can be generated organically by the users of the social networkand the activities of the members of the social network. So-calledorganic content may not, in some examples, include content such asimported content or system-generated content. Some of the content, suchas targeted messages, slideware, whitepapers, and advertisements, can besponsored by the creators or providers can be displayed to users based,for instance, on the creator or provider paying a fee to the provider ofthe social network to have that content displayed on the social network.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

Some embodiments are illustrated by way of example and not limitation inthe figures of the accompanying drawings.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a system including user devices and asocial network server.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram of a server.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram of an example of a targeted sponsored contentplatform and associated elements of a system.

FIGS. 4A and 4B are simplified illustrations of a system utilizingpartitions in the database.

FIG. 5 is a block diagram of a user interface screen displaying anactivity provided by a uniform social content platform.

FIG. 6 is a block diagram of a developer application screen for adeveloper application.

FIG. 7 is an activity rendering screen as can be displayed by a unifiedsocial content program.

FIG. 8 is a block diagram illustrating various components of a socialnetworking server with a recommendation engine.

FIG. 9 is a block diagram showing some of the functional components ormodules that comprise a recommendation engine.

FIG. 10 is a detailed block diagram of a social network server.

FIG. 11 is a depiction of a user interface screen.

FIG. 12 is an illustration of an interface screen to create a campaignincluding a sponsored content bid for a sponsored content profile.

FIG. 13 is a flow diagram illustrating an example of operations involvedin pre-processing user characteristics with a characteristic extractionengine to generate enhanced characteristics.

FIG. 14 is a flow diagram illustrating an example of operations involvedin generating a relevance between a user characteristics and a sponsoredcontent profile with a matching engine.

FIG. 15 is a flowchart for presenting sponsored content to a user basedon an aggregate sponsored content score.

FIG. 16 is a flowchart for transmitting a master content group includingboth sponsored and unsponsored content.

FIG. 17 is a flowchart for providing a sponsored content campaign acrossa plurality of servers, such as may be distributed across a plurality ofdata centers.

FIG. 18 is a flowchart for providing a sponsored content campaignutilizing a partition of a database.

FIG. 19 is a flowchart for operating a targeted sponsored contentplatform.

FIG. 20 is a flowchart for managing a sponsored content campaign with acampaign consumption module.

FIG. 21 is a flowchart for managing a sponsored content campaign with acampaign consumption module.

FIG. 22 is a block diagram illustrating components of a machine able toread instructions from a machine-readable medium.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Example methods and systems are directed to the generation of targetedsponsored content on a social network. Examples merely typify possiblevariations. Unless explicitly stated otherwise, components and functionsare optional and may be combined or subdivided, and operations may varyin sequence or be combined or subdivided. In the following description,for purposes of explanation, numerous specific details are set forth toprovide a thorough understanding of example embodiments. It will beevident to one skilled in the art, however, that the present subjectmatter may be practiced without these specific details.

Sponsored content may advantageously targeted to individual users of thesocial network based a sponsored content campaign established and paidfor by a sponsor of the content, such as a company, organization, orindividual. The campaign may direct sponsored content based on a profileof the user incorporating various characteristics of the user, such asthe user's social network profile, the user's behavior or activities,and the user's social graph, such as people, companies, and groups thatthe user has connected with, follows, or joins within the socialnetwork, the potential fragmentation of information within the socialnetwork can limit the ability to target individual users with sponsoredcontent effectively. Moreover, if one subsystem presents organicallygenerated content to a user at the same or close time another subsystempresents the same or essentially the same content to the user, thesponsored content may be unnecessarily duplicative. Unnecessaryduplication may harm user satisfaction generally as well as thesatisfaction of the entity sponsoring the content.

However, certain social networks may incorporate a number of users orresources that are impractical to operate on a single server. Manysocial networks incorporate multiple servers spread out over potentiallylarge geographic areas in order to provide the social network. Thedispersed nature of the social network infrastructure may support alarge network but may make coordination of various services, such as asponsored content campaign, more challenging than they may be if theservices were centrally located.

A social network system has been created that can provide sponsoredcontent campaigns among a variety of servers or data centers. Eachserver can be configured to implement the campaign according to campaigncriteria, including a campaign termination criterion. Each server canprovide the campaign for users of the social network according to thecampaign criteria but without necessarily utilizing constant interactionbetween the servers or common social network resource. As a result, thesocial network infrastructure may be dispersed but provide sponsoredcontent campaigns.

Within the context of a social network disclosed herein, content can bedefined as relatively complex, domain-specific media that can utilizeserver resources to be created and maintained. An activity, in contrast,can describe an event, such as when content is created, shared, orotherwise interacted with on the social network. An activity can includea summary of content and a link to the content.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a social network system 100 including userdevices 102 and multiple social network servers 104A, 104B, 104C(collectively, servers 104). User devices 102 can be a personalcomputer, netbook, electronic notebook, smartphone, or any electronicdevice known in the art that is configured to display web pages. Theuser devices 102 can include a network interface 106 that iscommunicatively coupled to a network 108, such as the Internet.

Each social network server 104 can be communicatively coupled to thenetwork 108 and locally with respect to one another. Each server 104 canbe an individual server or a cluster of servers, and, in variousexamples, the servers 104 can be consolidated on a single platform. Theservers 104 can be configured to perform activities related to servingthe social network, such as storing social network information,processing social network information according to scripts and softwareapplications, transmitting information to present social networkinformation to users of the social network, and receive information fromusers of the social network. The server 104 can include one or moreelectronic data storage devices, such as a hard drive, and can include aprocessor. The social network server 104 can store information relatedto members of the social network. For instance, for an individualperson, the member's information can include name, age, gender,profession, location, activities, likes and dislikes, and so forth. Foran organization, such as a company, the information can include name,offered products for sale, available job postings, organizationalinterests, forthcoming activities, and the like.

The servers 104 variously include components and platforms suitable toserver the social network. One or more of the servers includes a unifiedsocial content platform 110, a processor 112, a targeted social contentplatform 114, a database 116, and a transmitter 118 configured totransmit data to user devices 102 via the network 106. The unifiedsocial content platform 110 can store and access social networkinformation on the electronic storage devices, can reside on theelectronic storage devices, and can utilize or be provided by theprocessor. The targeted sponsored content platform 114 can provisioncontent according to a sponsored content campaign. The database 116 canstore information related to the social network, such as to theprovision of the sponsored content campaign.

While the servers 104 are illustrated as incorporating particularelements 110, 112, 114, 116, it is to be recognized and understood thatsystem 100 may incorporate servers 104 having a variety of elements 110,112, 114, 116. In various examples, the unified social content platform110 is provided on multiple servers 104 or each server 104, or may beprovided on a server 104 that does not incorporate, for instance, thetargeted sponsored content platform 114 or the database 116. Similarly,the database 116 may be located in multiple servers 104 or may belocated in server 104 separate to that of an instance of the targetedsponsored content platform.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram of an example server 104. As noted above, itis emphasized that the servers 104 generally may include or not includevarious elements described herein. The server includes the unifiedsocial content platform 110 and the targeted sponsored content platform114. In the illustrated example, the unified social content platform 110includes a publish application programming interface (API) 200, a queryAPI 202, and a management API 204. In the illustrated example, theelectronic data storage 206 of the server 104 provides storage for theunified social content platform 110 but is not itself part of theunified social content platform 110. In the illustrated example, theprocessor 208 of the server 104 provides processing for provisioningdata provided by the unified social content platform 110 but is notitself part of the unified social content platform 110. In alternativeexamples, the electronic data storage 206 and the processor 208 arecomponents, in whole or in part, of the uniform social content platform110.

In various examples, the electronic data storage 206 can be or caninclude an electronic data index in addition to durable storage of datafiles either for long term storage for dormant files or for filesactively utilized by the unified social content platform 110. In variousexamples, the electronic data index can be utilized for searchingfunctions, such as to identify files without necessarily accessing thefiles during the search. In various examples, the electronic data indexis non-durable data storage, in that the index merely includesinformation relating to files rather than the files themselves.

The social network server 104 can store information in the electronicdata storage 206 related to users of the social network, such as in theform of user characteristics corresponding to individual users of thesocial network. For instance, for an individual user, the user'scharacteristics can include one or profile data points, including, forinstance, name, age, gender, profession, prior work history orexperience, educational achievement, location, citizenship status,leisure activities, likes and dislikes, and so forth. The user'scharacteristics can further include behavior or activities within andwithout the social network, as well as the user's social graph. For anorganization, such as a company, the information can include name,offered products for sale, available job postings, organizationalinterests, forthcoming activities, and the like. For a particularavailable job posting, the job posting can include a job profile thatincludes one or more job characteristics, such as, for instance, area ofexpertise, prior experience, pay grade, residency or immigration status,and the like.

User characteristics described above can generally include user profilecharacteristics, in that they are typically defined by a single discretelabel, such as a number, a place, or a binary status. Characteristicsincluded in user behavior, such as can be identified based on useractivity within the social network generally. For instance, a user whoengages in job searches, such as by entering job keywords into a searchengine either of the social network or independent of the socialnetwork, can be deemed to have characteristics such as currently seekinga job, and job characteristics that the user is seeking, such as jobfield, pay grade, location, and the like. Additional user behavior oractivities, such as messages to job recruiters, job applications filledout or submitted, and messages to particular companies can also beincorporated. As such, user actions both within and without the socialnetwork can be utilized to determine user characteristics such as userbehavior.

Activity and behavioral data can be obtained by monitoring and trackingthe interactions that a user has with various applications, servicesand/or content that are provided by, or, integrated or otherwiseassociated with, the social network service. For example, a socialnetwork service may provide any number and variety of applicationsand/or services with which a member interacts. Similarly, a variety ofthird-party applications and services may leverage various aspects ofthe social network service, for example, via one or more applicationprogramming interfaces (APIs). A few examples of such applications orservices include: search engine applications and services, contentsharing and recommendation applications (e.g., photos, videos, music,hyperlinks, slideshow presentations, articles, etc.), job posting andjob recommendation applications and services, calendar managementapplications and services, contact management and address bookapplications and services, candidate recruiting applications andservices, travel and itinerary planning applications and services, andmany more.

Analysis of social graph data may signal a member's interest in variousjob profiles. For instance, in some examples, by analyzing certainsocial graph data, characteristics can be identified that are suggestiveof active job-seeking activity. For example, members who are activelyseeking particular jobs may be more likely to follow other members ofthe social network service, or establish new connections with othermembers in a very concentrated or shortened time span—particularly othermembers who are job recruiters for particular job types, or who areassociated with a job recruiting function. Similarly, members who areactively seeking jobs of a particular type may be more likely to followcertain companies at which there are open job positions matching themember's skills, or having the same job title as may be desired by themember. Members who are actively seeking particular job types may bemore likely to join certain online groups—particularly those groups thatexist primarily to aid job seekers. Accordingly, by analyzing socialgraph data to identify the entities with which a member is establishingassociations or connections, and the timing and frequency of theactivity, the job-seeking intentions of a member may be inferred, andused in the derivation of a metric representing the member's job-seekingpropensity.

In the illustrated example, the server 104 includes social networkapplications 210, such as can interface with, provide, and obtain socialnetwork information from the user devices 102 and other sources. Theserver 104 further includes a developer application 212 configured toallow administrators or developers of the social network to register newcriteria for the unified social content platform 110 to provideinformation on the social network, as disclosed herein. The developerapplication 212 can include or access a user interface and can accessthe publish API 200 and the query API 202. The developer application 212can allow a developer to create custom social network applications whilealso adhering to a substantially uniform aesthetic and front endrendering. The uniform social content platform 110 can publish developedapplications to the social network substantially immediately.

The unified social content platform 110 can include a data model thatincludes standard fields that can be applied across social networkapplications and activities. The data model can include standard fieldssuch as a destination and a visibility of an application. The data modelcan further include a data field for user defined fields, such as can beprovided by a developer via the developer application 212 or by a userof the social network.

The publishing API 200 can be called by an application to publishactivity to the unified social content platform 110. Publishedapplications 210 can be queried by at least the unified social contentplatform 110 and identified to a user, such as via the developerapplication 212. Upon being published, the applications can also be sentto a pipeline to be provisioned to the user devices 102 via the socialnetwork.

The processor 208 can manage the pipeline, such as with dedicatedpipeline software. The processor 208 can attach data onto activity itemsthat are provided, such as by applications 210, to the user devices 102via the social network. Such data can include summaries of users, suchas users acting on the applications 210, and objects in an activity. Inan example, if the actor is a member of the social network then theactor's name, profile picture or profile picture uniform resourcelocator (URL), and/or other data regarding the member of the socialnetwork. In an example, if the object of the action is a webpage, asummary of the web page can be attached. The processor 208 can also beconfigured, such as within its pipelining functionality, to store anactivity to a long term electronic storage 206 a, provide a search termto a search index in electronic storage 206 b, tally an activity indexcount, and send an event notification to offline storage.

The unified social content platform 110 can further include a summarizermodule 214. The summarizer module 214 can identify a body of an activityitem. The body can include a subject, verb, and/or object of theactivity item. The body can be provided for searching of activities,with the body providing certain commonly-sought data points for typicalsearches. The summarizer module 214 can be included in alanguage-translated or translatable format for searching in variouslanguages. The summarizer module 214 can annotate the body with thelocation of entities so that the entities can be highlighted and/orhyperlinked by a renderer. Annotations can identify the text that isannotated by start and end offset indices.

The body of the activity items generated by the unified social contentplatform 110 can be common among all applications. The user devices 102can be configured to render activities transmitted from the unifiedsocial content platform 110 without having to be separately configuredfor different applications. The content summary can accompany the bodyin an activity. The body and the content summary can be utilized tocreate consistent content displays and developer applications. The bodycan be annotated with semantic regions, allowing users and developers totailor the display of bodies based on the context. In an example, if aparticular company is mentioned in a body, the annotation can indicateto a user device 102 to generate and/or display a profile of thecompany.

The summarizer module 214 can, in certain examples, create a body fordisplay, such as upon having identified the body. The summarizer module214 can decorate an activity view, such as on a user device 102, withlocale-dependent views of entities, such as members, companies, and soforth. The summarizer module 214 can render a template according tocontext and dedicated helper functions. Upon rendering, a fully formedbody string can be displayed within a display region to show the body.

The unified social content platform 110 can optionally includeadditional APIs or templates for certain dedicated tasks. The unifiedsocial content platform 110 can include a query template forregularizing queries of stored materials. In an example, the unifiedsocial content platform 110 can include rendering templates that can beused in cross-platform applications. Such cross-platform applicationscan include as aspects of the social network that is not necessarilyprovided by the unified social content platform 110. The renderingtemplates can be built and registered via the developer application 212.Applications may select between and among the rendering templates foruse with activity items.

In an example, the social content platform 110 includes a comment API toappend comments to activities or other material managed by the unifiedsocial content platform 110. The comment API can optionally creatediscussion threads upon the establishment of a comment. Comments can beaggregated with other activity data, such as social gestures such asindications that a user likes an activity or content.

The processor 208 can provision a pipeline to transmit applicationsgenerated by the unified social content platform 110 to the socialnetwork generally, such as to be displayed on a user device 102. Thepipelining process can utilize a rich objects layout block 216 toconvert conventional text into presentational layouts that includegraphics, stylized text, and so forth. The rich objects layout block 216can be provided by the processor 208 or can be provided by dedicatedresources, such as processors and electronic memory. The pipelineprovided by the processor 208 can further provide storage and indexingof applications, in various examples with or without rich objectlayouts. The pipeline can be accessible to other applications beinggenerated in the unified social content platform 110 and, in variousexamples, elsewhere in the system 100, allowing applications in thepipeline to be utilized for other development purposes. The system 100generally, and in various examples the unified social content platform110 specifically, can incorporate pipeline monitoring functionality toidentify applications in the pipeline, such as by according to a uniqueidentifier.

As noted above, a social network can incorporate various discretelyimplemented data structures or subsystems in which various types ofsocial network information is provided or stored. For instance, incertain examples, separate databases may store, index, and providedifferent types information, such as employment characteristics of amember, user activities, the advertisements. In an example, databases218 in the electronic data storage 206 generally, and in both the longterm electronic storage 206A and the search index 206B in variousexamples, separately store and provision various informational aspectsof the social network.

In various examples, the information stored in one database 218 is notdirectly compatible with respect to information stored in anotherdatabase 218. Information stored in one database 218 may, for instance,incorporate different types and formats of data fields, resulting in aninability to store information from one database 218 in another database218. Each database 218 may be independently and separately search forrelevant information. Thus, a search for all information related to aparticular member of the social network, for instance, may be conductedin each individual database 218, with each database 218 separatelyreturning information related to the member. In some examples, theunified social content platform 110 can be configured to convertinformation of the same or related type into a uniform format for use bythe system 100. In that way, the unified social content platform 110 canserve to translate between individual databases 218 and the rest of thesystem 100.

In various examples, contrary to the above examples, the electronic datastorage 206 is a component of the unified social content platform 110.In such an example, the functionality of the unified social contentplatform 110 serves to provide a uniform structure for some or allstorage of social network information in the electronic data storage206. In certain such examples, though data may be stored and organizedin separate databases, the data structures of some or all of thedatabases may be uniform and not require translation or manipulation foruse by the rest of the system 100.

The unified social content platform 110 can include, in the case ofincorporating the electronic data storage 206 directly, or manipulate,in the case of translating from incompatible databases 218, profiles ofmembers of the social network that include characteristics of themembers, the social graph of the members of the social network, andcontent summaries of applications. The social graph data may be remoteto the server 104 or to the social network generally, such as byincorporating distributed social graph information from multiple sourcesoutside of the social network. Such distributed social graph informationcan be accessed as part of a query execution. These data can includedependent data. In an example, the member profiles can include fieldsindicating characteristics, such as: member activity; a member agebracket; whether member connections are allowed; whether an open link isallowed by the member; member group information; member connections;member country; a date the member registered with the social network; adefault locale; a member profile viewer; a member web profile; variousmember group exclusions; a member name; a member gender; a member socialgeneration; a member time zone or time zone offset; a member jobindustry; a identification of an inviter of the member to the socialnetwork; a time the member last checked the social network; a last timethe member logged in to the social network; a member name preference; amember geographic location; a member unique identifier; a memberpicture; a member email address; a member status; a member postal code;a preferred member locale; a number of social network proposals acceptedby the member; a member region; whether the member requires or requiredreferral to the social network or functions of the social network;member restrictions; a member state; a member social networksubscription plan; a member vanity name; a web profile setting, and amember age.

The unified social content platform 110 can incorporate as an organicblock or call as a separate block a targeted sponsored content platform114. The targeted sponsored content platform 114 can be configured toselect various forms of sponsored social network content for displayingto particular users and members of the social network based on variouscriteria, as disclosed herein. In various examples, the targetedsponsored content platform 114 functions as or incorporates arecommendation engine as disclosed below to compare a sponsored contentprofile against a user or member profile in conjunction with a sponsoredcontent bid entered by an entity providing the sponsored content. Invarious examples, the targeted sponsored content platform 114 can fullyconstitute the recommendation engine as disclosed below. The targetedsponsored content platform 114 can incorporate input from the unifiedsocial content platform 110, such as output from separate recommendationengine analysis of the content of individual databases 218, such as forrecommended organic content. Additionally or alternatively, the targetedsponsored content platform 114 can incorporate input directly fromapplications 210, data storage 206A, and from other sources such as fromuser devices 102. In that way, the targeted sponsored content platform114 can consolidate multiple items of recommended content, such asrecommended organic content from individual databases 218 as well assponsored content, into an overall recommended content presentation fora user of the social network.

In various examples, the unified social content platform 110 can bewholly or substantially self-contained/sufficient. In various examples,the unified social content platform 110 does not make “sideways” callsto another equivalently-tiered block. Rather, like certain super blocksknown in the art, the unified social content platform 110 can, incertain examples, make calls “down” to general infrastructure blocks.Such infrastructure blocks can include the electronic data storage 206,certain functions that may be provided by the processor 208, such as thepipelining function. “Cloud” computing functions known in the art can beincluded as infrastructure.

In various examples, equivalent mid-tier calls can be made by theunified social content platform 110 to other mid-tier or super blocks.In an example, another block of an equivalent or approximatelyequivalent tier (such as, in various examples discussed herein) to thetargeted sponsored content platform 114, to the uniform social contentplatform 110 can provide proxy calls to the unified social contentplatform 110. In such an example, various services can provide data todecorate onto the result of the proxy call. Alternatively, the unifiedsocial content platform 110 can monitor streaming data from mid-tier orsuper blocks and maintain read-only replicas of data from the othermid-tier or super blocks.

The unified social content platform 110 can be published with extensionpoints or service provider interfaces (SPI). The unified social contentplatform 110 can be published as a raw schema and/or as a dedicatedclient library with an SPI including interfaces that can be implementedto the unified social content platform 110 as well as to the schemas to,for instance, permit the addition of processing elements to theprocessor 208. The APIs and SPIs of the system 100 generally can bebuilt as independent tasks.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram of an example of the targeted sponsoredcontent platform 114 and associated elements of the system 100. As notedabove, the targeted sponsored content platform 114 may include orfunction as a recommendation engine to provide sponsored content toparticular users as appropriate to the user's characteristics, asdisclosed herein. Additionally, the targeted sponsored content platform114 may include mechanism to manage sponsored content campaigns betweenand among multiple servers 104 that incorporate individual instances ofthe targeted sponsored content platform 114.

At least some, and in various examples all of the targeted sponsoredcontent platforms 114 are capable of separately executing a sponsoredcontent campaign where the campaign itself extends across multipletargeted sponsored content platforms 114. As will be discussed in detailbelow, each targeted sponsored content platform 114 may be configured tomaintain data as received by the targeted sponsored content platform 114itself, receive updates from other targeted sponsored content platforms114, and anticipate events related to the sponsored content campaignlikely received by the other targeted sponsored content platforms 114between or in absence of updates. As such, each targeted sponsoredcontent platform 114 may separately manage a sponsored content campaignand, once a campaign termination condition would likely have been metacross the system 100 as a whole, terminate the sponsored contentcampaign as implemented by the individual targeted sponsored contentplatform 114.

The targeted sponsored content platform 114 incorporates a trackingmodule 300, a campaign consumption module 302, an index module 304, and,in the illustrated example, the database 116. It is to be understoodthat the database 116 may be one of the databases 218 or, asillustrated, may be separately provisioned for the purposes of storingdata related, at least in part, to sponsored content campaigns. It is tobe understood that the database 116 is not necessarily included as apart of certain targeted sponsored content platforms 114.

The tracking module 300 may manage the transmission of sponsored contentevent data 306, such as display of sponsored content to a user on a userdevice 102 or a user interaction with the content, such as by clickingon a sponsored link. The tracking module may perform various aspects ofsponsored content event data 306 tracking, including but not limited tomonitoring and decrypting data sent from the user devices 102 related tointeraction with sponsored content, buffering such information, andstoring the sponsored content event data 306 information as a packet inthe database 116 or other electronic data storage. The tracking module300 may also perform error checking and manage the resending of corruptinformation, de-duplication of sponsored content event data 306information, and validation of such information, such as may be utilizedto identify potentially fraudulent sponsored content event data 306information.

FIGS. 4A and 4B are simplified illustrations of the system 100 utilizingpartitions 400 in the database 116, such as may be utilized to promotemanagement of sponsored content event data 306 as received from the userdevices 102. The database 116 may be a general database 116A or a localdatabase 116B. The tracking module 300 may obtain information from theuser devices 102. The partitions 400 may support the streaming ofrelatively large amounts of information from the tracking modules 300.Each partition 400 may be separately buffered by the correspondingtracking module 300.

In one example illustrated in FIG. 4A, the tracking module 300 maydirect sponsored content event data 306 related to a campaign or entityprovided on its corresponding server 104 directly to the local database116B while forwarding all information to the general data base 116A.Consequently, each targeted sponsored content platform 114 may besubject to receiving sponsored content event data 306 from some or allof the sponsored content campaigns operated by the system 100.Consequently, the sharing of sponsored content event data 306 betweentargeted sponsored content platforms 114, such as via the database 116,may facilitate the individual targeted sponsored content platforms 114managing the various campaigns, as disclosed herein.

In another example illustrated in FIG. 4B, each partition 400corresponds to an individual sponsoring entity, with each entitycorresponding to one partition 400. In various alternative examples,each partition 400 corresponds to one or more sponsored contentcampaigns. Sponsored content event data 306 may be directed to thepartition 400 corresponding to the event's campaign, such as bycomparing the campaign identifier and/or the sponsoring entityidentifier of the sponsored content event data 306 as disclosed herein.From there, the partition 400 may provide the sponsored content eventdata 306 to the targeted sponsored content platform 114 corresponding tothe partition 400.

The tracking module 300 may discriminate between various types ofsponsored content event data 306. For instance, simply because a pieceof sponsored content is served to a user device 102 does not necessarilymean that the sponsored content will be presented to a user. Rather, thesponsored content may simply be pre-fetched and/or cached for futureviewing. In various examples, the tracking module 300 may incorporatedata, such as from the user device 100 and/or the unified social contentplatform 110 and the system 100 generally to identify whether asponsored content item has been served to a user device 102 but notdisplayed to a user.

Additionally, the tracking module 300 may compensate for lag or delay inregistering sponsored content event data 306, such as may occur due todelays in transmitting such events from the user device 102. In variousexamples, the serving history of various sponsored content event data306 may be obtained from the unified social content platform 110 andparsed according to the identification of the member of the socialnetwork associated with the user device 102. The history may be utilizedto identify likely occurrences of a social content event without havingactually received the event itself. In various examples, the history ofa likely event may be utilized for one (1) minute or less after theserving of the sponsored content event data 306.

For de-duplication, the tracking module 300, each serving of a sponsoredcontent item may be registered by a unique identifier, such as from theunified social content engine 110. Sponsored content event data 306 astransmitted from the user devices 102 may include the unique identifierof the corresponding sponsored content item. The tracking module 300 maycompare the unique identifier of the sponsored content item as servedagainst the identifier of the sponsored content event data 306 receivedfrom the user device 102 and register only a maximum number of eventsfor each item. In various examples, the maximum number of events peritem is configurable based on the nature of the item. The targetedsponsored content platforms 114 may share sponsored content event data306 for cross-engine 114 de-duplication. In various examples,de-duplicating may be applied to an entire packet from the bufferingfunction disclosed above. In such an example, it may be assumed that aduplicate sponsored content event data 306 obtained from a bufferedpacket means that the entire packet is a duplicate and can be discarded.

The database 116 may be horizontally scalable, partitioned, anddocument-oriented. The database 116 may be partitioned according to anyof a variety of factors. In an example, the database 116 is partitionedaccording to a unique identifier of each entity that is currentlyrunning or, in various examples, has run a sponsored content campaign.Sponsored content event data 306 may incorporate the entity identifierin addition to the identifier related to the sponsored content item, asdisclosed above. In various examples, each partition may storeinformation relating to only one (1) entity or may store informationrelating to multiple entities.

Data stored in the database 116 may also include an identifier relatedto the individual targeted sponsored content platform 114 from which thedata was obtained. The platform identifiers may be utilized tofacilitate the sharing of data between platforms 114, such as to allowvarious platforms 114 to anticipate the operation of sponsored contentcampaigns on other platforms 114.

The database may be utilized to produce reports relating to a sponsoredcontent campaign. One report may detail the type of events correspondingto a sponsoring entity or particular campaign and may include: a reportdate; a sponsoring entity identifier; a campaign identifier; a sponsoredcontent item identifier; a number of events that correspond to sponsoredcontent items being displayed to a user on the user device; a number ofevents that correspond to a user selection of a sponsored content item;a number of events that result in a conversion for the purpose for whichthe sponsored content item was presented (e.g., a sale from anadvertisement or a new member for an organization, etc.); and a totalcampaign cost. One report may provide detail on user selections of thesponsored content items and may include: a report date; a sponsoringentity identifier; a campaign identifier; a sponsored content itemidentifier; a number of events that correspond to sponsored contentitems being displayed to a user on the user device; the types of userselections of sponsored content items (e.g., a dismissal of the content,a click-through on a link, etc.); and data relating to the interaction(e.g., the timing of a click of a link following initially presentingthe link to the user, the number of clicks of the link, etc.). Otherreports are contemplated, including relating to metadata related to thecampaign.

The tracking module 300 may transmit data to the database 116 accordingto a variety of processes and schedules. In an example, the trackingmodule 300 regularly transmits sponsored content event data 306 as thedata is acquired, in contrast, for instance, to batch transmissions.Transmission of data may be according to multiple threads that may becoordinated to provide data to the database 116 at a maximum rate tocontrol the write rate to the database 116.

The campaign consumption module 302 may track each sponsored contentcampaign according to one or more campaign completion criteria. Thecampaign completion criteria may be based on a completion of thecampaign overall and/or over a predetermined time period, such as one(1) day or twenty-four (24) hour period. Thus, the campaign consumptionmodule 302 may track the extent to which a campaign is presented tousers of the social network and, based on that presentation, continuethe campaign, terminate or suspend the campaign temporarily until apredetermined time period has passed (e.g., the one-day period haspassed or a rolling number of sponsored content event data 306 that haveoccurred within a twenty-four (24) hour period has fallen below athreshold), or terminate the campaign altogether.

In various examples, a campaign consumption module 302 may serve as amaster module for one partition 400. Additionally or alternatively, thecampaign consumption module 302 may operate as a backup or secondarymodule for one or more different partitions 400. The processing capacityfor each partition 400, such as may be provided by the processor 112,may manage which campaign consumption module 302 acts as primary modulefor the partition 400, or the management of the campaign consumptionmodule 302 and partition 400 pairings may occur based on processingthroughout the system 100. Each partition 400 individually or the system100 generally, such as via the database 116, may maintain a log orreport of sponsored content event data 306 that has been processed byeach partition 400 over a preceding period of time, such as thirty (30)second to thirty (30) minutes, to facilitate the transfer of primaryresponsibility of a partition 400 from one campaign consumption module302 to another campaign consumption module 302. Such a log may providefor de-duplication and other data that may be utilized in themaintenance of the sponsored content campaigns.

Events as stored in the database 116 may be transmitted to the campaignconsumption module 302 as a batch. In various examples, there is aone-to-one relationship between campaign consumption modules 302 anddatabases 116. Alternatively, a database 116 may provide data tomultiple campaign consumption modules 302 according to the partition 400to which the campaign consumption module 302 corresponds as the primarymodule.

The campaign consumption module 302 may monitor the budget correspondingto each of the campaigns provided by the system 100. As noted above,campaigns may be based on a lifetime budget and/or a budget over aparticular sub-period of the lifetime, such as one (day), one (1) week,one (1) month, or a variety of other time periods as would be apparent.The campaign consumption module 302 may monitor both the budget for aparticular campaign as well as the budget for a sponsoring entity. Thus,if, for instance, an entity has multiple campaigns, each with a budget,as well as a budget for the entity as a whole, exceeding the budget fora particular campaign may terminate or suspend that particular campaign,or exceeding the budget for the entity may result in the termination orsuspension of all of the campaigns corresponding to the entity.

The campaign consumption module 302 may receive sponsored content eventdata 306 from the database 116 and update the statistics related tocampaign and sponsoring entity budgets accordingly. In an example,according to a particular campaign, a presentation of a sponsoredcontent item on a user device 102 may correspond to a first cost, a userinteraction with a sponsored content item may correspond to a secondcost, and so forth. On the basis of the sponsored content event data 306as obtained by the tracking module 300 and stored in the database 116,the campaign consumption module 302 may determine the total cost thatmay be applied to the budget for the campaign and/or entity.

The campaign consumption module 302 may check campaign parametersperiodically, such as once per minute, to determine if a campaigntermination criterion has been met. Such checking may includedetermining if external factors relating to the campaign parameters,such as the passage of time, have changed, such as if a newday/week/month has begun, in which case campaign and/or entity trackingmay be reset for the corresponding time period. Alternatively oradditionally, the campaign consumption module 302 may check campaignparameters on the basis of receiving predetermined sponsored contentevent data 306. In such an example, the campaign parameters and relatedexternal factors may be checked when a received sponsored content eventdata 306 indicates that a user has interacted with a sponsored contentitem as disclosed herein.

In addition to determining campaign termination conditions, the campaignconsumption module 302 may also utilize sponsored content data tomonitor minimum criteria for campaigns. In various examples, campaignsmay require both a maximum budget as well as a minimum amount ofexposure of sponsored content from the campaign, such as over apredetermined time period, such as one (1) day. The campaign consumptionmodule 302 may monitor the number of sponsored content event data 306 ofvarious types to determine if campaign minimum criteria are being met.

In an example, a campaign may set a minimum number of displays ofsponsored content items on the user devices 102. A campaign may also seta goal of a predetermined number of interactions with and/or conversionsof sponsored content items, as detailed herein. The campaign consumptionmodule 302 may monitor such sponsored content event data 306, eithergenerally or specific to the types of events. The campaign consumptionmodule 302 may provide periodic reports relating to the meeting ofcampaign minimums and/or may provide alerts if the campaign minimums arenot being met. On the basis of the reports and/or alerts, the targetedsponsored content platform 114 generally may increase a likelihood of asponsored content item being transmitted to a particular user device102, as disclosed herein.

FIG. 5 is a block diagram of a user interface screen 500 displaying anactivity provided by the uniform social content platform 110. The userinterface screen 500 can be provided on the client devices 102 to theextent that a user account on the social network that corresponds to theactivity in question is accessed on the client device 102. In anexample, the screen 500 can display an activity statement according toan actor-verb-object format disclosed herein. In alternative examples,different formatting selections can be generated via the unified socialcontent platform 110.

The screen includes a body 502 of an activity as generated by thesummarizer module 214. The illustrative example body 502 includes anactor field 504, a verb field 506, an object field 508, and anattributed entity field 510. The unified social content platform 110 caninclude text to link together the body fields 504, 506, 508, 510 into agrammatically coherent way. The linking text can be included by adeveloper, such as via the developer application 212 in the developmentof the pertinent application, or according to an engine of the unifiedsocial content platform 110 that can generate appropriate andsubstantially grammatically correct phrases.

The actor can be an entity that initiated the activity that is thecurrent subject of the screen 500. The actor can be a person or acompany, or any entity that can be identified. The verb can be a complextype registered with an application 210. Registration can be based on auser selection via the developer application 212 and can be changeddynamically. Conjugation can be specified by the developer when the verbis registered. A registered verb may also define custom properties byspecifying each property's name and type. When a developer publishes anactivity, the publisher can spicy the verb and provide values forvarious properties. Development comments can be appended to verbs invarious examples.

The object is an entity acted upon by an activity statement. The objectcan be an entity that has an identifier. The object can be an entityidentified by a URL. The object can be an entity that can be summarizedwith a title and variously a description, an image, and a URL from apublisher of the object. In various examples, an activity can notinclude an object and can be referred to as a “post”.

The object can take the form of a “target”. The target can be utilizedwhere the object is part of a larger class. For instance, “X applied fora job at Y” provides Y as an example of a target, where Y is a specificcompany.

An attributed activity or application can be the originator of theactivity. The attributed activity can be provided where the actor of theactivity is not the entity that originated the activity. In an exemplaryformat, “X shared a link from Y” where X and Y are both actors providesan attributed activity.

Standard and custom actions can be available for an activity. Additionalactions may be provided by a publisher or developer once the action isregistered with the developer application 212. In query results,standard and custom actions can be attached to pertinent activities, andin an example to each pertinent activity, for rendering.

Custom properties may be defined for verbs and objects. Once defined,can activity can be published with the properties. On output, commentsand counts of other social actions can be attached to each activity tofacilitate rendering the comments and counts can be rendered inline withthe activities. Similar activities can be grouped into common familiesaccording to a selectable data field of the activity. Annotations canallow semantic regions of text to be marked up upon displaying anactivity.

Verbs, objects, and other data types disclosed herein can be customized.Data types can be primitive or complex according to their number ofcustomizable properties. Properties can be utilized to specify data typelayout on the screen 500, such as according to syntax and appearance.The develop application 212 can be utilized to customize suchproperties. The properties can be selectable and customizable accordingto standard protocols known in the art or according to proprietaryprotocols.

The user interface screen 500 can include additional information, suchas that can be included on social network web sites. An image 512 canprovide an image chosen by or indicative of a user of the social networkor an entity providing content to the social network. A contentrendering section 514 can display information, such as a status update,an article, a web link, and other social network content. A call toaction section 516 can provide options for users of the social networkto comment on or otherwise interact in a social network context with thecontent in the rendering section 514. A social summary section 518 canshow social network interactions with the content, such as can beconducted by users of the social network in the call to action section516. For instance, a comment or other use interaction with the contentcan be displayed in the social summary section 518.

FIG. 6 is a block diagram of a developer application screen 600 for thedeveloper application 212. The user interface screen 600 can bedisplayed on a conventional display screen such as be a component of orinterface with the server 104. The screen 600 can be utilized by adeveloper to register verbs, objects, custom properties, and the like.

The developer application screen 600 includes menu tabs to selectvarious functions of the developer application 212. The tabs can includean actor creation tab 602, a verb creation tab 604, an object creationtab 606, and a feed creation tab 608. Various tabs 602, 604, 606, 608can be excluded dependent on operational needs, while additional tabscan be included as needed or as may be convenient. The tabs 602, 604,606, 608 can be supplemented by or replaced with other conventional menuselections known in the art.

The tabs 602, 604, 606, 608 or other menu options can provide access tocorresponding frames, as illustrated a verb creation frame 610corresponding to the verb creation tab 604. The verb creation frame 610provides new verb specification field 612 for the specification of theverb, conjugations of the verb, and similar information, and new verbproperty fields 614, such as can specify activities and applications towhich the verb applies. Similar fields 612, 614 for specifying objectsand the like can be available on frames corresponding to other tabs 602,606, 608.

An actor creation frame accessible by the actor creation tab 602 caninclude fields to specify a name, a namespace and a description of theactor. Each actor can be specified a unique identifier. The actorcreation frame can further include fields for actor attribution tospecify how an attribution is displayed in an activity body, such aswhere in a sentence the attribution is displayed (e.g., “X commented onY via Z”). Actor attribution can be located in a separate frame or beaccessible by a separate tab.

The verb creation frame 610 can include fields 612 for an un-conjugatedform of the verb, conjugated forms of the verb, and fields 614 forcustom properties of the verb. The developer application 212 can provideestimated conjugations of the un-conjugated in the conjugated verbfields that can be subject to editing via the fields 612. The verbcreation frame 610 can display an example activity that includes theverb.

An object type creation frame accessible by the object creation tab 606can provide fields for entering the type of an object, such as a branch,a grammatical article (e.g., “a” or “an”) that may, in certain examples,be an estimated article by the developer application 212, and fields tospecify a singular and a plural form of the object. Additional fieldsmay provide for the specification of custom properties of the object.Optional templates may be presented and selected for use with theobject, as well as a preview of an example activity using the object.

The object type creation frame can further include fields specifying howto treat an object that appears as a target, such as what prepositionsto use with respect to the object as a target. In various examples,objects can be referred to by type, such as a general classification ofthe object, rather than by the object itself. By way of comparison, an“orange” can be specified to be referred to as an “orange” or as a“fruit”.

The query type creation frame can be utilized for the creation of afeed, such as in a browsing query language (BQL), as well as to defineattributes that are referenced in a query. A preview of the feed for thequery can be rendered in the frame and/or saved for future use orapplication. A unique identifier can be assigned to the feed. Each feedcan be assigned a URL. Accessing the URL can display the query utilizedto generate the feed.

Various applications and the components of the applications can be madegenerally accessible to developers who have access to the developerapplication. Such applications can be generally available and subject tobeing modified by any developer, such as by locking the applicationwhile a developer is making changes and then releasing the applicationfor another developer to make changes. Certain applications can bedesignated as being not publicly modifiable.

In various examples, the developer application 212 can support thegeneration of aggregated or consolidated applications. In an example,where multiple entities have acted on the same object, an aggregatedapplication can be generated. (e.g., “X and Y have commented on Z'supdate.”) In an example, where an entity has acted on multiple objects,an aggregated application can be generated. (e.g., “A has joined B andC.”) In an example, where an entity has performed multiple actions, asingle collapsible and expandable update can be generated. (e.g., “K hascommented on L's update,” “K is now connected to M,” and “K read N'sarticle” can be consolidated to “K has commented on L's update. (+showmore from K)”) The unified social content platform 110 can be based onindexed search criteria that can return, for instance, all of theactivities of a particular entity over a predetermined time period. Theunified social content platform 110 can periodically search for entitiesand objects in the search index to identify pertinent information thatcan support aggregated or consolidated actions.

FIG. 7 is an activity rendering screen 700 as can be displayed by theunified social content program 100, such as by the developer application212. A developer can utilize the activity rendering screen 700 todevelop a model to render an activity with common rich text, images, andso forth, as compared to other activities. The activity rendering screen700 includes a picture field 702, a headline field 704, and a summaryfield 706. In various examples, a developer can choose to omit variousfields 702, 704, 706.

The model can form the basis for rendering by providing instructions tothe client-side, such as the user device 102. The client-side canutilize the model to render the activity. Based on changes promulgatedto the client side, upon an updated standard for rendering the model,the rendering itself may be changed and updated without having to changethe model or the activity itself.

The unified social content platform 110 can provide multiple models. Thenumber of models may be limited in order to prevent undesired lack ofuniformity. However, the number of models may be selectable to permitdesired flexibility. Various models can include a basic model thatincludes one each of the picture field 702, the headline field 704, andthe summary field 706. An additional model can include a gallery viewthat includes multiple picture fields 702 and, in various examples, nosummary field 706. A list view model can include an expanded summaryfield 706, such as includes a bulleted list, and that optionally doesnot include a picture field 702.

In an example, a developer can chose from among the pre-defined models.For each model, the developer an establish how to fill in each field702, 704, 706, such as with specified images, bodies, verbs, objects,and so forth. The model can be stored in the electronic data storage 206as a model schema. Each field can be assess upon return of the modelfrom the electronic data storage 206 for changes in the properties ofthe items that fill the fields 702, 704, 706.

To conduct rendering, the client-side, such as the client device 102,can be provided with a parser function to transform the body into anappropriate format based on the context of the client device 102, suchas whether the client device is a desktop computer, a mobile device, andso forth. The client device 102 can further be provided with a rendererfunction that can transform the model into the appropriate context.Based on the combination of the body and the model, the client device102 can render the complete activity in the consistent formatestablished throughout the application of the social network.

Sponsored Content

In various embodiments, the system 100 includes logic, such as in thetargeted sponsored content platform 114, that can identify usercharacteristics that conform to a given sponsored content campaignprofile. In various examples, upon receiving a request to identify usercharacteristics similar to a particular sponsored content campaignprofile, the system may analyze a variety of user characteristics toselect one or more user characteristics that have the highest aggregatesponsored content scores with respect to the sponsored content campaignprofile. The identification can be in real-time, understood to be ananalysis that is conducted essentially immediately upon receiving thesponsored content profile. After identifying the most similar usercharacteristics (e.g., those with the highest aggregate sponsoredcontent scores), the system 100 may transmit information related to thesponsored content to the selected users.

In various examples, the targeted sponsored content platform 114 cangenerate a list of user characteristics with the highest aggregatesponsored content scores. The list can be presented to a sponsor of thesponsored content. The sponsor can identify users who have usercharacteristics that are desirable for sending sponsored content to andmanually select users of the social network to whom sponsored contentcan or should be presented.

In various examples, a recommendation service or feature may generate anaverage user characteristic based on the aggregate user characteristicinformation of all or some selected users for particular sponsoredcontent. For instance, the recommendation service may select the averageuser characteristic as an input to the user characteristic matchingalgorithm, and identify user characteristics that are similar to themodel sponsored content profile for the sponsored content campaign. Foreach user characteristic that is determined to be similar to the averageuser characteristic for a particular sponsored content, the targetedsponsored content platform 114 may recommend to a user having a usercharacteristic similar to the sponsored content profile for the instantsponsored content, that the user be presented with the sponsored contentif the user has not already been so presented.

The ability to accurately identify in real-time or essentially real-timea set of user characteristics most similar to a sponsored contentprofile (or, in various examples, a set of company profiles most similarto a user characteristic) can be achieved with a general recommendationengine of the targeted sponsored content platform 114. Accordingly, atleast in some examples, the recommendation engine provides arecommendation service that can be customized for use with multipleapplications or services. A recommendation entity can be a collection ofinformation organized around a particular concept that is supported bythe system 100 in general, and the recommendation engine in particular.For instance, some examples of recommendation entities are: usercharacteristics, interest groups, companies, advertisements, events,news, discussions, text posts, short form posts, questions and answers,and so forth. Accordingly, in some examples, by specifying theparticular characteristics of two recommendation entities to becompared, and by specifying a particular algorithm for use in generatingan aggregate score, such as in the instant example an aggregate companyscore, for the two recommendation entities, the recommendation enginecan be configured and customized to perform such tasks as: generateaggregate sponsored content scores for use in presenting sponsoredcontent to a user; generate aggregate sponsored content scores for usein recommending particular interest groups that a user might beinterested in joining; generate aggregate sponsored content scores foruse in displaying an appropriate or relevant advertisement to aparticular user, and many others.

In an example, the recommendation engine operates in two phases. In thefirst phase, the data representing each individual instance of aparticular recommendation entity, such as the user characteristics andthe sponsored content characteristic, is processed by a characteristicextraction engine to extract the relevant characteristics on whichmatching analysis is to be performed. In various examples, in the caseof user characteristics, only certain characteristics or portions of auser's characteristics may be selected for use in determining thesimilarity of any two profiles, such as the user characteristics and asponsored content profile. As such, during the first phase, acharacteristic extraction engine processes each user characteristic toextract the relevant characteristics, including profile characteristics,behavior characteristics, and social graph characteristics. In additionto simply extracting certain characteristics from relevantrecommendation entities, the characteristic extraction engine may derivecertain characteristics based on other information included in therecommendation entity, such as from the user characteristics.

In various examples, user characteristics can be obtained inferentially.In one example, one characteristic that may be used to identifysimilarities between user characteristics and a sponsored contentprofile is work experience. Work experience may included as acharacteristic in user characteristics directly or may be arrived atindirectly, such as by being measured in the number of years since auser graduated from a selected educational institution or achieved aparticular educational level. While work experience, in an example, maynot be included as raw data in a user's characteristics, it may bederived with a calculation if the user's graduation date is specified inthe user's characteristics. In addition, in some examples, thecharacteristic extraction engine may standardize and/or normalizevarious characteristics, such as a user's sponsored content or positiontitle, or the name of a company at which a user has indicated beingemployed. In some examples, certain characteristics may be retrievedfrom external data sources, using other information included in therecommendation entity as part of a query to the external data source.

The first phase may occur in real-time or as a background operation,such as offline or as part of a batch process. In some examples thatincorporate relatively large amounts of data to be processed, the firstphase may be achieved via a parallel or distributed computing platform.Once the relevant characteristics have been extracted, computed,derived, or retrieved, relevant characteristics of the one or moreselected users or sponsored contents can be stored as a pre-processedrecommendation entity. For instance, in the case of usercharacteristics, the characteristic extraction process can result inenhanced user characteristics that includes only the relevantcharacteristics extracted from a user's characteristics as well as anyderived or retrieved characteristics. The enhanced characteristics canbe used during the recommendation engine's second phase, when thematching engine compares the relevant characteristics from the sponsoredcontent profile against each user characteristic until those usercharacteristics with the highest aggregate sponsored content scores areidentified.

In an example, during the second phase, the matching engine of therecommendation engine uses a configuration file that is customized forthe particular analysis being performed. For example, a firstconfiguration file (referred to herein as a profile matchingconfiguration file) may exist for use in identifying usercharacteristics similar to a sponsored content profile, whereas a secondconfiguration file—specifying different characteristics from differentrecommendation entities to be compared, and a different algorithm forcomputing the matching scores—may be specified for determining thesponsored content that is most likely to be of interest to a particularuser. As such, by configuring the characteristic extraction engine toextract relevant data from certain recommendation entities, andcustomizing the analysis performed by the matching engine with anappropriate configuration file, a wide variety of recommendationoperations can be achieved with the general recommendation engine.

FIG. 8 is a block diagram illustrating various components of a socialnetworking server 104 with a recommendation engine 800 for identifyingsimilarities between different recommendation entity types, such as usercharacteristics and sponsored content profiles. It is noted that, invarious examples, the recommendation engine 800 may be a part of thetargeted sponsored content engine 114. Alternatively or additionally,the recommendation engine 800 may incorporate elements of the system 100beyond the targeted sponsored content platform 114 as appropriate. In anexample, the social networking server 104 is based on a three-tieredarchitecture, consisting of a front-end layer, application logic layer,and data layer. As is understood by skilled artisans in the relevantcomputer and Internet-related arts, each module or engine shown in FIG.8 and throughout this description can represent a set of executablesoftware instructions and the corresponding hardware (e.g., memory andprocessor) for executing the instructions. To avoid obscuring thesubject matter with unnecessary detail, various functional modules andengines that are not germane to conveying an understanding of theinventive subject matter have been omitted from FIG. 8. However, askilled artisan will readily recognize that various additionalfunctional modules and engines may be used with a social networkingserver 104 such as that illustrated in FIG. 8, to facilitate additionalfunctionality that is not specifically described herein. Furthermore,the various functional modules and engines depicted in FIG. 8 may resideon a single server computer, or may be distributed across several servercomputers in various arrangements.

The front end of the social network server 104 consists of a userinterface module (e.g., a web server) 802, which receives requests fromvarious client computing devices, and communicates appropriate responsesto the requesting client devices. For example, the user interfacemodule(s) 802 may receive requests in the form of Hypertext TransportProtocol (HTTP) requests, or other web-based, application programminginterface (API) requests. The application logic layer includes variousapplication server modules 804, which, in conjunction with the userinterface module(s) 200, generates various user interfaces (e.g., webpages) with data retrieved from various data sources in the data layer.With some embodiments, individual application server modules 804 areused to implement the functionality associated with various services andfeatures of the system 100. For instance, the ability to identify usercharacteristics similar to a sponsored content may be a serviceimplemented in an independent application server module 804. Similarly,other applications or services that utilize the recommendation engine800 may be embodied in their own application server modules 804.

The data layer can include several databases, such as a database 808 forstoring recommendation data, such as user characteristics and sponsoredcontent profiles, and can further include additional social networkinformation, such as interest groups, companies, advertisements, events,news, discussions, text posts, short form posts, questions and answers,and so forth. In some examples, the recommendation entity data isprocessed in the background (e.g., offline) to generated pre-processedentity data, that can be used by the recommendation engine, inreal-time, to make recommendations generally, and to identify usercharacteristics similar to a sponsored content profile. In an example,the recommendation engine 800 may retrieve and process usercharacteristic data 810, including a user profile, user behavior, and auser social graph, in the database 808 to identify user characteristicssimilar to a sponsored content profile. The database 808 can storeapplication configuration data, including one or more configurationfiles for use with the recommendation engine 800.

In various examples, when a person initially registers to become a userof the system 100, the person can be prompted to provide some personalinformation, such as his or her name, age (such as by birth date),gender, interests, contact information, home town, address, the names ofthe user's spouse and/or family users, educational background (such asschools, majors, etc.), employment history, skills, professionalorganizations, and so on. This information can be stored, for example,in the database 808.

Once registered, a user may invite other user, or be invited by otherusers, to connect via the system 100. A “connection” may involve abi-lateral agreement by the users, such that both users acknowledge theestablishment of the connection. Similarly, with some embodiments, auser may elect to “follow” another user. In contrast to establishing a“connection”, the concept of “following” another user typically is aunilateral operation, in some examples, does not require acknowledgementor approval by the user that is being followed. When one user followsanother, the user who is following may receive automatic notificationsabout various activities undertaken by the user being followed.

The system 100 may provide a broad range of other applications andservices that allow user the opportunity to share and receiveinformation, often customized to the interests of the user. In someexamples, the system 100 may include a photo sharing application thatallows users to upload and share photos with other users. In someexamples, users may be able to self-organize into groups, or interestgroups, organized around a subject matter or topic of interest. Withsome embodiments, users may subscribe to or join groups affiliated withone or more companies. For instance, with some embodiments, users of thesystem 100 may indicate an affiliation with a company at which they areemployed, such that news and events pertaining to the company areautomatically communicated to the users. In some examples, users may beallowed to subscribe to receive information concerning companies otherthan the company with which they are employed. With many of theseapplications and services, one or more recommendation entities may beinvolved. For instance, in addition to identifying user characteristicsthat are similar to a sponsored content profile, the recommendationengine 800 may be configured and customized to identify groups,companies or photos that are likely to be of interest to a particularuser.

FIG. 9 is a block diagram showing some of the functional components ormodules that comprise a recommendation engine 800, in some examples, andillustrates the flow of data that occurs when performing variousoperations of a method for identifying and presenting usercharacteristics that are similar to a sponsored content profile. Asillustrated, the recommendation engine 800 consists of two primaryfunctional modules—a characteristic extraction engine 900 and a matchingengine 902. The characteristic extraction engine 902 can be customizedto extract various characteristics from various recommendation entities,and then operating the matching engine 902 under the direction of aparticular configuration file 904 to perform a particular type ofmatching operation that is specific to the requesting application.Accordingly, depending upon the particular inputs to the recommendationengine 800 and the desired outputs, different configuration files 504may be used to compare different characteristics of differentrecommendation entities. For instance, to identify user characteristicsthat are similar to a sponsored content profile, a particularconfiguration file 904 (referred to herein as a profile matchingconfiguration file) may be used, while different configuration files 504may be used to perform other tasks, such as identify sponsored contentthat a user may be interested in.

In the case of identifying user characteristics similar to a sponsoredcontent profile, the profile matching configuration file 904 is used asan input to the matching engine 902 to specify the various usercharacteristics that the matching engine is to extract from thepre-processed user characteristic data 810 and to compare. In addition,the characteristic matching configuration file 904 can specify analgorithm for comparing characteristics and generating an overallmatching score.

In various examples, each user's and the sponsored content'scharacteristic data 810 is provided as input to the characteristicextraction engine 900, processed by the characteristic extraction engine900, and then output and stored as pre-processed user characteristicdata 810. In some examples, the characteristic extraction engine 900 mayextract only relevant characteristics from whatever recommendationentity is being processed by the characteristic extraction engine. So,for example, in the case of user characteristics, the characteristicextraction engine 900 may extract only the characteristics that arenecessary for making the determination of whether a user characteristicsis similar to a sponsored content profile. However, in some examples,all characteristics are extracted, while only certain characteristicsare further processed or refined.

As illustrated, the characteristic extraction engine 900 includes acharacteristic derivation module 906 and a data retrieval module 908. Insome examples, the characteristic derivation module 906 derives certaincharacteristics (e.g., profile characteristics, behaviorcharacteristics, and social graph characteristics) based on the datainput to the characteristic extraction engine. For instance, in the caseof user characteristics, the characteristic derivation module 906 mayderive one or more characteristics from the information included in auser's characteristics. Similarly, the data retrieval module 908 mayutilize information input to the characteristic extraction engine 900 toformulate a query that is communicated to an external data source 910.As such, the data retrieval module 908 of the characteristic extractionengine 900 can retrieve various characteristics from one or moreexternal data sources, such that these retrieved characteristics can beused to determine the similarity of any two user characteristics.

In addition to deriving various characteristics, and retrieving variouscharacteristics, the characteristic extraction engine 900 can includelogic to normalize or standardize certain characteristics. For instance,in some examples, a user may be prompted to provide his or her jobtitle. Because job titles can vary from one company to the next, andfrom one industry to the next, job titles may be normalized orstandardized. For example, the simple job title, “analyst” may have verydifferent meanings in different industries. By normalizing and/orstandardizing the job titles and then writing the standardized andnormalized job titles to each user's enhanced characteristics, therecommendation engine can make meaningful comparisons, and therebyprovide relatively accurate results when presenting user characteristicssimilar to a sponsored content profile.

After the characteristic extraction engine 900 has generated thepre-processed user characteristic data 810, the matching engine 902 isable to process client requests to identify user characteristics similarto a sponsored content profile. In some examples, the client of thematching engine 902 may simply be a server-side application that isrequesting the information from the matching engine 902. Accordingly,the requesting application may specify or determine the particularconfiguration file that is to be used by the matching engine 902 toperform the requested task and achieve the requested objective. When arequest is received at the matching engine 902 to provide a list of usercharacteristics similar to a sponsored content profile, the matchingengine 902 can use the profile matching configuration file 904 todetermine the particular user characteristics that are to be retrievedfrom the various enhanced user characteristics. In addition, in variousexamples, the profile matching configuration file 904 can specify theexact comparisons that are to be performed, and how the overall matchingscore is to be calculated. Accordingly, the particular profile matchingconfiguration file 904 can include instructions or directives for use bythe matching engine 902 to perform the necessary characteristiccomparisons, and to generate the aggregate sponsored content scores foreach user characteristic, such that the aggregate sponsored contentscore for each user characteristic indicates the similarity of the usercharacteristics with respect to the sponsored content profile.

In some examples, the matching engine 902 can compare multipleindividual characteristics such that each compared characteristicresults in an aggregate sponsored content score (referred to herein as asub-score, to reflect that the sub-score is a component of the overallaggregate sponsored content score). Once each sub-score is determined,the sub-scores are combined in some manner indicated by the profilematching configuration file 904. That is, the profile matchingconfiguration file 904 will dictate how the matching engine 902 is toweight and combine the individual similarity sub-scores to derive theoverall aggregate sponsored content score for each user characteristic.

FIG. 10 is a detailed example of the social network server 104. Thesocial network server 104 includes a sponsored recommendation engine1000. The sponsored recommendation engine 1000 can incorporate therecommendation engine 800 or can be an adapted, separate form of therecommendation engine 800. In an example, the sponsored recommendationengine 1000 is a component of the targeted sponsored content platform114. In various examples, the sponsored recommendation engine 1000includes characteristic comparison between user characteristics andsponsored content profiles, and further factors a sponsored content bidassociated with the sponsored content profile. A sponsored content bidcan correspond to a cost incurred by the sponsored content-postingentity to present the sponsored content posing to relevant users of thesocial network.

The server 104 can include a sponsored content poster interface 1002,such as with a user interface coupled to the server 104 or via thenetwork interface 106. The user interface can include a conventionalkeyboard and display configuration well known in the art. The sponsoredcontent poster interface 1002 provides an interface for the posting ofsponsored contents, including a corresponding sponsored content profile,on the social network and an ability to enter sponsored content bids forposted sponsored contents. Such interaction by the sponsored contentposter can cumulatively be referred to as a “campaign.”

The sponsored content poster interface 1002 is coupled to a datamanagement system 1004. The data management system 1004 can incorporatedata management technologies well known in the art or can incorporateproprietary data management structures. In an example, the datamanagement system 1004 incorporates SAS or Statistical Analysis Systemdata management systems, to promote business analysis, statisticalanalysis, data storage and recover, and the like for sponsored contentinformation. The data management system 1004 can include the capacityfor social network administrators to utilize the data generated by thedata management system 1004, such as by inputting tasks into the datamanagement system.

The sponsored content poster interface 1002 and the data managementsystem 1004 can both be coupled to the database 808. The sponsoredcontent poster interface 1002 can transmit sponsored content data, suchas sponsored content profiles and sponsored content bids, to thedatabase 808 for storage without respect to data management activities.The data management system 1004 can store sponsored content data in thedatabase 808 upon the sponsored content data having been acted upon fordata management analysis.

The network interface 106 can provide the input of user data, such asuser characteristics, into the social network. The user characteristicscan be stored in the database 808 or can be directly transmitted to thesponsored recommendation engine 1000 for cross reference against thesponsored content profiles stored in the database 808. Sponsoredcontents identified by the sponsored recommendation engine 1000 can betransmitted via the network interface 106 to the user device 102 forpresentation to the user.

A sponsored content analytics system 1006 can track the occurrence ofsponsored contents that have been presented to or selected by a user.Bids by sponsored content posting entities can be based on a fixednumber of occurrences that a sponsored content is presented to orselected by a user. In an illustrative example, a campaign may include alimit of one thousand (1,000) user selections for two (2) dollars peruser selection. The sponsored content analytics system 1006 can trackhow many times sponsored content has been presented, how many timessponsored content has been selected or “clicked” on by a user, bill asponsored content presenting entity accordingly, and adjust theremaining number of times the sponsored content has left to be presentedor selected accordingly.

Various campaigns can specify various limitations or lack thereof. Acampaign can include an absolute maximum of clicks that will besponsored or no limit. A campaign may specify a campaign time limit ofhours, days, or longer, or no time limit. The sponsored contentanalytics system 1006 can operate campaigns as auctions, such as byadjusting bids for a campaign within a range of bids based on the numberof user selections the sponsored content has received; many selectionsmay result in a lowered bid while few selections may result in a higherbid. A campaign may specify a campaign limit of monetary expenditure.

The sponsored content analytics system 1006 can further monitor whichsponsored content is posted to users to seek to prevent sponsoredcontent postings from being duplicated to a single user, as well asrecord analytical information related to the number of times, forinstance, that a presented sponsored content has been clicked on by auser and the user characteristics of users who have clicked on sponsoredcontent presentations. In various embodiments, the sponsored contentanalytics system 1006 can present the same sponsored content to the sameuser a predetermined number of times or until the user clicks on thesponsored content to learn more. The sponsored content analytics system1006 can further terminate sponsored content bids that, for instance,meet a termination date or are being presented to users unsatisfactorilyfrequently or unsuccessfully. Additionally, the sponsored contentanalytics system 1006 may be utilized to renew or extend sponsoredcontent bids, such as at the direction of the sponsored contentpresenting entity or the social network administrator.

In various examples, a recommendation entity for sponsored content canassociate a monetary sponsored content bid with sponsored content. Insuch an example, the recommendation engine 800 can incorporate therelative size of a sponsored content bid in the calculation relating tothe presentation of particular sponsored content to a particular user.Such monetary sponsored content bids can be in one or more currencies.The currencies may be normalized by up-to-date currency exchange ratesfor the purposes of determining the relative value of the bid.

In various alternative embodiments, the sponsored content bid can benon-monetary or can incorporate non-monetary elements. Such non-monetaryelements can be promotional credits offered to a sponsored contentposting entity by an administrator of the social network, can beservices-in-kind with a supplier to the social network, and so forth.Such non-monetary elements can be assigned an equivalent monetary valuefor the purposes of calculating the relevance of particular sponsoredcontent to a particular user.

In various examples, the database 808 incorporates multiple sponsoredcontent profiles, each of the sponsored content profiles individuallycorresponding to one sponsored content item for which an entity that hascorresponding sponsored content on offer. The sponsored recommendationengine 1000 is configured to determine an aggregate sponsored contentscore for at least some of the sponsored content profiles in thedatabase 808 by incorporating a relevance of the sponsored contentprofiles to user characteristics using the recommendation engine 800 anda potential sponsored content bid corresponding to each sponsoredcontent profile. Sponsored content profiles that do not incorporate asponsored content bid may either not have their relevance scoremodified, or may be treated by the system 100 as a separate type ofsponsored content profile in comparison with sponsored content profilesthat have corresponding sponsored content bids.

In various examples, when a user accesses the social network, thesponsored recommendation engine 1000 cross references the user'scharacteristics against some or all of the sponsored content profiles inthe database 808. The recommendation engine 800 can generate a relevancefor each of the cross referenced characteristics. The sponsoredrecommendation engine 1000 can utilize a processor 1008 (in variousexamples, the processor 1008 is the processor 112 of the system 100) canmanipulate the relevance for the sponsored content profile by acorresponding sponsored content bid. In an example, the relevance for asponsored content profile is multiplied by the sponsored content bidcorresponding to the sponsored content profile.

In an illustrative example, if the recommendation engine 800 arrives ata relevance of 0.8 for user characteristics in comparison with a firstsponsored content profile, for instance because eighty (80) percent ofthe characteristics of the user and the first sponsored content profilesmatch, and the first sponsored content profile has a bid of two (2)dollars, the aggregate sponsored content score for the first sponsoredcontent is 1.6. If the recommendation engine 800 arrives at a relevanceof 0.4 for user characteristics in comparison with a second sponsoredcontent profile, and the second sponsored content profile has a bid offive (5) dollars, the aggregate sponsored content score for the secondsponsored content is 2.0. The social network may then displayinformation related to the second sponsored content ahead of informationrelated to the first sponsored content on the user device 102corresponding to the user.

In various examples, the relevance of a job profile to a user may alsofactor in previous success that the job posing has had with other users.If a large percentage of users who are presented with a job posing basedon the job profile select the job posing for more information, then thejob posting may be deemed more relevant. A so-called “click-throughrate” that exceeds a threshold may result in the relevance of the jobposing being increased, while a click-through rate less than a thresholdmay result in the relevance of the job posting being reduced.

Relatedly, the characteristics of other users of the social network whodo select a job posting for more information can also be incorporatedinto determining the relevance for a particular user. Characteristics ofusers who have selected a particular job posting in the past can becompared against user characteristics of a prospective user. To theextent that user characteristics of a prospective user are or are notrelated to the user characteristics of users who have selected a jobposting in the past, the relevance of the job posting may similarly beincreased or decreased for a prospective user. As such, the server 104may store characteristics of users who have selected the job posting inthe past and may develop composite user characteristics. The degree towhich the characteristics of a prospective user match the compositecharacteristics may weight the results of the recommendation engine moreheavily for a given prospective user.

In various examples, the sponsored recommendation engine 1000 does notpresent a sponsored content with corresponding sponsored content bidunless the relevance of the sponsored content profile to the usercharacteristics is greater than a minimum threshold. In such examples,it may be undesirable to display sponsored content that is unsuitable toa particular user to that user regardless of how much the sponsoredcontent posting entity has bid. In various examples, the minimumthreshold for sponsored content is approximately 0.85 and the minimumthreshold for unsponsored content is 0.4. Thus, if the relevance of athird sponsored content profile to a user profile is 0.7, the sponsoredcontent would not be presented to the user regardless of the size of thecorresponding sponsored content bid, while unsponsored content with thatrelevance may be presented to the user.

In various examples, sponsored content with sponsored content bids(i.e., “sponsored content”) and that have the highest aggregatesponsored content score are always presented to the user moreprominently than sponsored content that does not have a correspondingsponsored content bid (i.e., “organic content”). In an example, onlysponsored content is presented to the user. In an example, the system100 may present the user a predetermined number of sponsored contentswith the sponsored contents having the highest aggregate sponsoredcontent scores presented to the user in descending order. If there arenot sufficient sponsored contents to meet the sponsored contentsrequirement then the unfulfilled sponsored contents quota may simply beunmet. Upon the presentation of the predetermined number of sponsoredcontents, organic content may then be presented to the user, such asaccording to the organic content determined relevance to the user.

In an alternative example, the organic content may be assigned the sameaggregate sponsored content score as their relevance score and allsponsored and organic content presented to the user based on thecomparative sponsored content scores. In such an example, if an organiccontent has an aggregate sponsored content score of 1.0, while thehighest aggregate sponsored content score for a sponsored content is0.9, the organic content may be presented to the user ahead of thesponsored content.

Acquiring Sponsored and Organic Content

In various examples, the system 100 can obtain a combination ofrecommended sponsored and organic content for display on a user device102. As discussed above, the unified social content platform 110 canincorporate or can access or call the targeted sponsored contentplatform 114. In various examples, a recommendation engine 800 canreceive output from one or more databases 218. In examples in which thedata in various databases 218 is not format-compatible across thedatabases 218, the unified social content platform 110 can translate thevarious data elements into a format, such as a single common format,that can be utilized by the recommendation engine 800 to obtainrecommendations.

In an example, the recommendation engine 800 produces a list ofrecommended content for each individual database 218 from whichrecommended content is to be obtained. In an illustrative example,individual databases 218 include a job posting database, a status updatedatabase, an articles database configured to store content such aspublished informative or entertainment articles and other multimediacontent, a user characteristics database, and so forth. Therecommendation engine 800 can separately assess each individual database218 and obtain recommended content from each database 218. In anexample, the recommendation engine 800 obtains a predetermined number ofrecommended results from each database 218.

FIG. 11 is a depiction of a user interface screen 1100 that can bedisplayed by the social network on the user device 102 corresponding toa user. In an example, the user interface screen 1100 is a sub-portionof a larger user interface screen displaying additional informationrelated to the social network. Upon the sponsored recommendation engine1000 having identified sponsored and organic content to present to auser, the social network server 104 can transmit the sponsored contentto the user device 102, such as along with other social networkinformation that is displayed on a user interface, such as a displayscreen, of the user device 102.

In the illustrated example, the user interface screen 1100 includes anews feed 1102 of sponsored and organic content. In various examples,the news feed 1102 is an ordered list based on various criteriadescribed herein. If the sponsored recommendation engine 1000 did notidentify any sponsored content to present to the user, the userinterface screen 1100 may only present organic content. Depending on theaggregate sponsored content scores and the criteria for displaying thenews feed 1102, in certain examples only sponsored content is presentedon the news feed 1102.

In an example noted above, sponsored content items 1104A, 1104B aredisplayed at the top of the list, i.e., most prominently on the newsfeed 1102. In the above example, the sponsored content item 1104Bcorresponds to the second sponsored content profile that received anaggregate sponsored content score of 2.0 and is displayed mostprominently at the top of the news feed 1102, while sponsored contentitem 1104 a corresponds to the first sponsored content profile thatreceived an aggregate sponsored content score of 1.6 and is displayedbelow and less prominently on the news feed 1102 than the firstsponsored content item 1104B. In the illustrated example, the sponsoredcontent items 1104A, 1104B include a sponsored content title 1106, asponsored content category 1108, a sponsored content location 1110, aremarked “sponsored” in the label section 1112.

In the illustrated example, organic content items 1114A, 1114B aredisplayed less prominently than the sponsored content items 1104A,1104B. In an illustrative example, the organic content item 1114Acorresponds to a relevance score of 0.9 and is displayed above of andmore prominently than the organic content item 1114B, which has arelevance score of 0.7. The organic content items include the contenttitle 1106, the content category 1108, the content location 1110, andthe label section 1112. In various examples, organic content items1114A, 1114B do not incorporate a label section 1112 or includes a labelsection 1112 with an indication that the content is not sponsored.

As noted above, various examples permit content items 1104A, 1104B and1114A, 1114B to be displayed in various arrangements depending on therequirements of the social network. Thus, as noted above, the organiccontent may have their relevance scores converted into aggregatesponsored content scores and then all of the content items 1104A, 1104Band 1114A, 1114B positioned in the news feed 1102 according to theiraggregate sponsored content scores. In this way, organic content 1114A,1114B may be presented more prominently than some sponsored contentitems 1104A, 1104B.

In various examples, the news feed 1102 may not include any sponsoredcontent item 1104A,B, such as if no content has been sponsored or if nosponsored content exceeds the relevance threshold for the user. Invarious examples, the news feed 1102 may not include any organic content1114A,B, such as if the social network has been programmed to firstpresent all sponsored content item 1104A,B until space on the news feed1102 has been exhausted and only then begin displaying organic content.

FIG. 12 is an illustration of an interface screen 1200 to create acampaign including a sponsored content bid for a sponsored contentprofile. The interface screen 1200 can be specifically adapted for useby customers, such as sponsored content posting entities, though theinterface screen can be utilized by social network administrators or anyother party for whom access to create or modify a campaign is granted.The interface screen 1200 can be displayed on a web browser or otherprogram or application for displaying and interfacing with informationknown in the art. The interface screen 1200 can function as thesponsored content poster interface 1002.

The interface screen 1200 includes an identifier field 1202 to enter anidentifier, such as a name, for the campaign. The identifier may bedescriptive of the campaign and/or may uniquely identify the campaign.The interface screen 1200 further includes a bid field 1204 in which abid price or range of bid prices for an auction format can be entered. Abudget field 1206 can be utilized to limit either the number ofsponsored content presentations or user selections will be paid for or amonetary limit for the campaign. Sponsored content profile field 1208can be utilized to upload sponsored content profile characteristics orselect a sponsored content profile that has already been entered intothe system 100. In various examples, a single campaign can includemultiple sponsored content profiles, with each user selection of asponsored content profile counting against the limitations for thecampaign as a whole.

The interface screen 1200 can be utilized to modify existing campaigns.Existing campaigns can be lengthened or shortened, have budgets and/orbids increased or decreased, and have sponsored content profiles addedor removed from the campaign. Under certain business conditions, asponsored content poster may be prevented from adjusting a campaign oncea campaign has begun, in which case the interface screen 1200 mayreflect an inability to change campaign parameters. In various examples,an administrator of the social network may always be given access tomodify a campaign.

FIG. 13 is a flow diagram illustrating an example of the methodoperations involved in a method of pre-processing user characteristicswith a characteristic extraction engine to generate enhancedcharacteristics for use by a matching engine. In some examples, some ofthe method operations illustrated in FIG. 13 may be performed offline bymeans of a batch process that is performed periodically (e.g., two timesa day, daily, weekly, and so forth), while in other examples, the methodoperations may be performed online and in real-time as requests forsimilar user characteristics and sponsored content profiles are beingreceived and processed.

At 1300, the relevant characteristics for a user or sponsored contentprofile are retrieved. In some examples, the characteristic extractionengine is configured to extract only certain characteristics from eachuser's information. Accordingly, the characteristic extraction enginemay simply retrieve from a database the relevant data corresponding tothe relevant characteristics. In some examples, the retrieval may beperforming a database look-up or fetch of the relevant data.

At 1302, as some characteristics may be free-form text (i.e.,unstructured data), such as a description of a user's interest, skills,hobbies, career objectives, and so forth, some of the relevantcharacteristics that have been retrieved are parsed and extracted fromtheir raw data format.

At 1304, one or more processes may be performed to either normalize orstandardize one or more characteristics. For instance, a user's jobtitle may be standardized so that it can be more easily compared withothers. Similarly, the name of a company that employees a user may benormalized, for example, to drop or add “Inc.” or “Corporation” and soforth.

At 1306, the characteristic extraction engine 900 may derive one or morecharacteristics from raw data included in a user's characteristics orsponsored content's profile. For example, in some examples, one or moreenhanced characteristics may be characteristics that are derived fromthe raw data included in a user's characteristics. If, for example, auser's characteristics indicates the year that he or she graduated fromcollege, an enhanced characteristic that can be derived from this rawdata may include the number of years of work experience after college.In addition, some characteristics may include data received from a datasource external to the system 100. Accordingly, data from a user'scharacteristics (e.g., a name, or other identifying data) may be used toquery an external data source for additional information about the user.

At 1308, the relevant characteristics, including characteristics such asextracted characteristics, derived characteristics, normalized orstandardized characteristics, or retrieved characteristics are writtento storage as pre-processed, enhanced user characteristics.

FIG. 14 is a flow diagram illustrating an example of the methodoperations involved in a method of generating a relevance between a usercharacteristics and a sponsored content profile with a matching engine902.

At 1400, the recommendation engine 800 receives, retrieves, or otherwisereads or processes a profile matching configuration file. The profilematching configuration file, which may be a document formatted inExtensible Mark-up Language (XML) or in some other format, specifies theparticular characteristics (or data elements) that are to be extractedor retrieved from a particular recommendation entity, such as anenhanced user characteristic. For example, in assessing the relevance ofuser characteristics to a sponsored content profile, the names of theperson and the sponsored content may not play a role in determining thesimilarity of the characteristics. As such, the profile matchingconfiguration file may not include user's names as a characteristic tobe extracted and compared. However, technical skills or professionalorganizations may be relevant to the analysis, and as such, thesecharacteristics may be specified in the profile matching configurationfile, such that the data representing these characteristics areultimately retrieved and analyzed by the matching engine 902.

As discussed below, the profile matching configuration file specifiesthe particular characteristics to be retrieved as well as the particularmatching algorithms to be used for each of the retrievedcharacteristics. For example, the profile matching configuration fileindicates an algorithm or comparison operations that are to be performedfor the various characteristics specified in the profile matchingconfiguration file, and how the various similarity sub-scores, resultingfrom the comparison of individual characteristics, are to be combined togenerate an overall relevance. In some instances, the profile matchingconfiguration file may indicate that a particular comparison is to beperformed for a particular characteristic that results in a match onlywhen there is an exact match. In other instances, a partial match may beindicated, and so forth. In some instances, the comparison may involvedetermining whether a particular user characteristic is within aparticular distance of the same sponsored content profile characteristicand so forth. As such, the matching profile may indicate not only thetype of matching operation to be performed between a particular pair ofcharacteristics, but also the weight that should be applied to anyresulting sub-score generated as a result of a match occurring betweentwo characteristics. In some examples, the weight applied to anyparticular sub-score may be dependent upon the extent to which twocharacteristics match, as specified by a matching algorithm or rule inthe profile matching configuration file.

At 1402, the relevant characteristics for one of the usercharacteristics and the sponsored content profile are retrieved. In someinstances, the sponsored content profile may be selected by a user,while in other instances, an application or process selects a particularsponsored content profile. In any case, the relevant sponsored contentprofile characteristics for the selected sponsored content profile arethose sponsored content profile characteristics specified in the profilematching configuration file obtained at 1400. In some examples, eachuser and sponsored content profile may have an identifier (e.g., such asa user or sponsored content identifier, or, user or sponsored contentprofile identifier). Accordingly, a request to identify sponsoredcontent profiles similar to user characteristics may include anidentifier identifying the sponsored content profile. With this, thematching engine 902 can retrieve the necessary characteristics from thepre-processed, enhanced user or sponsored content profile for theparticular user or sponsored content identified by the user or sponsoredcontent identifier, as the case may be.

At 1404, the matching engine retrieves the same set of characteristicsfor the other of the user characteristics or sponsored content profilenot retrieved at 1402. In some examples, the particular user orsponsored content profiles that are compared may be selected based onsome required matching criteria, either by default, or as specified byan application, process or user who has initiated the request. Forinstance, the matching analysis may be limited to only those users orsponsored content that share a particular characteristic in common withthe profile selected in 1402, such as having the same job title, orexperience requirement. In other instances, the entire set of usercharacteristics or sponsored content profiles may be considered.

At 1406, the matching engine 902 compares the various characteristicsand calculates a relevance for the user characteristics and thesponsored content profile in accordance with the instructions ordirectives set forth in the profile matching configuration file. Forinstance, the profile matching configuration file indicates whatcomparison operation is to be performed for a pair of characteristics,and how the various similarity sub-scores are to be combined to derivethe overall aggregate sponsored content score.

At 1408, the relevance is associated with the user characteristics. Theprocess of operation 1406 may be repeated for additional sponsoredcontent profiles, until all of a particular set of sponsored contentprofiles have been assigned relevance scores.

At 1410, once all the sponsored content profiles have a relevance score,indicating a level of similarity to the user characteristics, a certainnumber of the sponsored content profiles with the highest aggregatesponsored content scores are selected for use with the sponsoredrecommendation engine 1400. In some examples, the number of sponsoredcontent profiles that are selected and provided for use with arequesting application may be determined using some default orpredetermined number. Alternatively, in some examples, the number ofuser characteristics that are selected and provided to a particularrequesting application may be configurable so that a certain number ofthe user characteristics with the highest relevance scores are provided.For example, in some examples, the profile matching configuration filespecifies the number of user characteristics that are to be returned tothe requesting application. The number of user characteristics may bespecified explicitly (e.g., ten, thirty, one-hundred), or via a rule,such as, the top “X” number of user characteristic sets, or all usercharacteristic sets with a matching score exceeding “X”, or somecombination.

FIG. 15 is a flowchart for presenting sponsored content to a user basedon an aggregate sponsored content score. The flowchart is discussedherein with respect to the system 100, but can be implemented on anysuitable system.

At 1500, a user characteristic is received by the processor 112. Invarious examples, multiple user characteristics are received by theprocessor 112. The user characteristic can be received via networkinterface 106, can be obtained from the electronic data storage 110 ofthe system 100, or can be received as input from a direct physicalconnection to the system 100, among other possible input methodologiesknown in the art.

At 1502, a sponsored content characteristic of a sponsored contentprofile of a sponsored content is received by the processor 112. Invarious examples, multiple sponsored content characteristics of thesponsored content profile are received by the processor 112. Thesponsored content characteristic can be received via the sponsoredcontent poster interface 1202, such as via the network interface 106,from the electronic data storage 110 of the system, or can be receivedas input from a direct physical connection to the system 100, amongother possible input methodologies known in the art. In variousexamples, sponsored content characteristics from multiple sponsoredcontent profiles can be received.

At 1504, a sponsored content bid is received from an entity related tothe sponsored content, such as a sponsored content posting entity thatposted the sponsored content to the social network. In various examples,the sponsored content bid can include a monetary bid for a number oftimes a message related to the sponsored content is posted on a userdevice 102, a number of times a user selects or “clicks” on the message,an amount of money the sponsored content posting entity is willing topay for each time a sponsored content message is presented, selected, orotherwise interacted with, a total amount of money the sponsored contentposting entity is willing to pay, a duration of time the bid is active,and so forth as disclosed herein. In various examples, multiplesponsored content bids from multiple pieces of sponsored content can bereceived. The number of sponsored content bids received, therebydenoting sponsored content, can be less than the total number ofsponsored content items corresponding to the sponsored content profilesreceived at 1502, with the sponsored content items not corresponding tosponsored content bids being organic content.

At 1506, the processor 112 determines an aggregate sponsored contentscore for the user based on the relevance of the sponsored contentcharacteristic to the user characteristic and the sponsored content bid.The relevance can be determined according to the methodology of FIG. 12and as disclosed herein. Relevance can be determined as a percentage ofmatching ones of the user and sponsored content characteristics thatcomprise the user and sponsored content profiles, respectively. Theaggregate sponsored content score can be arrived at by applying the bidto the relevance. In various examples, the relevance is multiplied bythe bid to arrive at the aggregate sponsored content score. In variousexamples, an aggregate sponsored content score is obtained for eachsponsored content item. In various examples, only a relevance score isobtained for organic content. In various examples, both sponsored andorganic content obtain an aggregate sponsored content score.

At 1508, a message relating to the sponsored content is presented to theuser based, at least in part, on the aggregate sponsored content score.In various examples, the message is presented as illustrated on theinterface screen 800. In various embodiments, the message includes aninternet web link to further information. As shown on the interfacescreen 800, presentation of the message related to the sponsored contentcan be organized on the interface screen 800 as an ordered listaccording to whether the sponsored content is sponsored content andwhich sponsored content has the largest aggregate sponsored contentscore. In various examples, multiple messages related to differentsponsored content items are presented with respect to one another basedon their respective aggregate sponsored content scores, such as byplacing higher magnitude aggregate sponsored content scores relativelymore prominently on the interface screen 800. In various examples, onlysponsored content that has a relevance with a magnitude greater than apredetermined threshold are presented to the user.

FIG. 16 is a flowchart for transmitting a master content group includingboth sponsored and unsponsored content. The flowchart can utilize thesocial networking system 100 or any other suitable system or device.

In operation 1600, the unified social content platform 110 obtains anunsponsored or organic content group from each of a plurality ofunsponsored content group sources, such as the databases 218. In variousexamples, each unsponsored content group includes at least oneunsponsored or organic content element. In various examples, theunsponsored content groups are obtained based on a relevance of at leastsome unsponsored content elements of at least some unsponsored contentgroups to a characteristic of a user, such as is determined by therecommendation engine 800. In various examples, each unsponsored contentgroup comprises not more than a predetermined maximum number ofunsponsored content elements.

In operation 1602, the system 100 generates a sponsored content group.In various examples, the sponsored content group includes at least onesponsored content element and an associated bid. In various examples,the sponsored content group is generated by the targeted sponsoredcontent platform 114, such as with the sponsored recommendation engine1000, as implemented in or by the targeted sponsored content platform114. In various examples, the sponsored content group is generated basedon the relevance as determined by the sponsored recommendation engine1000, the bid, and at least one of a maximum frequency at whichindividual ones of the sponsored content elements are to be displayed tousers and a total available budget for each individual one of thesponsored content elements, such as can be entered via the interface1002 and the interface screen 1200. More generally, the system candefine a pacing for the campaign in which targeted content is deliveredsubstantially evenly over a defined period of time, such as over a day,a week, or a total duration of the campaign, in several illustrativeexamples. In an example, the sponsored content group contains not morethan a predetermined maximum number of sponsored content elements.

In various examples, with respect to at least one of 1600 and 1602, theuser characteristic can be one of multiple of user characteristics. Insuch examples, the unsponsored content elements and the sponsoredcontent elements each have at least one content characteristic. In suchexamples, the recommendation engines 800, 1000 can determine relevanceof each of the unsponsored and sponsored content elements is based, atleast in part, on a number of user characteristics related to the atleast one content characteristic of each of the unsponsored andsponsored content elements.

In operation 1604, the targeted sponsored content platform 114 generatesa master content group based on the unsponsored content groups and thesponsored content group. In various examples, the master content groupis generated based on the relevance of the unsponsored content elementsas determined by the recommendation engine 800 and a relevance of thesponsored content element to the characteristic of the user and theassociated bid as determined by the sponsored recommendation engine1000. The master content group can be the content that is displayed onthe news feed 1102 of the user interface screen 1100.

In operation 1606, the system 100, and in an example the unified socialcontent platform 110, compares the unsponsored content elements and thesponsored content elements of the master content group to identifyduplicate content elements.

In operation 1608, the system, and in an example the unified socialcontent platform 110, removes at least one duplicate content elementfrom the master content group. In various examples, the duplicatecontent element is an unsponsored content element. In variousalternative examples, the duplicate element is a sponsored contentelement. In various examples, whether a sponsored or unsponsored contentelement is removed based on being a duplicate is based on a userselection, such as a general rule to always remove either a sponsoredcontent element or an unsponsored content element in the event ofduplication.

In operation 1610, the system 100 transmits the master content group toa user device 102 associated with the user corresponding to the usercharacteristic.

In operation 1612, the system 100 performs an analytical analysis basedon selection of a selectable link of a sponsored content element of themaster content group by a user on the user device 102. In such examples,at least some of the unsponsored content elements and sponsored contentelements include a selectable link to information relating to the atleast some of the unsponsored content elements and sponsored contentelements. In various examples, the analytical analysis is performed bythe sponsored content analytics system 1006. In various examples, theanalytical analysis is based on a rate at which users who are presentedwith the at least some unsponsored content elements and sponsoredcontent elements select the selectable link.

FIG. 17 is a flowchart for providing a sponsored content campaign acrossa plurality of servers, such as may be distributed across a plurality ofdata centers. While the flowchart will be described with respect to thesystem 100, it is to be understood that the flowchart may be implementedon any suitable system.

In operation 1700, the processor 112 for a server 104A generates amaster content group for an individual user of the social network basedon an unsponsored content group and a sponsored content groupcorresponding to the sponsored content campaign as provided by thetargeted sponsored content module 114 of the server 104A.

In operation 1702, the transmitter 118 transmits the master contentgroup for display on the news feed 1102 of the user interface screen1100 of the user device 102 associated with the individual user.

In operation 1704, the server 104A receives sponsored content event data306 from the user device 102 associated with the individual user, suchas user interactions on the user interface screen 1100, such as clicksor selections, of sponsored content items 1104 of the sponsored contentgroup.

In operation 1706, the sponsored content event data 306 as received bythe server 104A are optionally stored in the database 116 along withsponsored content event data 306 that may be determined from thegeneration and transmission of the master content group, such assponsored content items 1104 that are transmitted for display on thenews feed 1102. As disclosed herein, the database 116 may be associatedwith the particular server 104A or may be separate from the particularserver 104A.

In operation 1708, the targeted sponsored content platform 114 of theserver 104A receives the sponsored content event data 306, variouslyfrom the server 104A itself, the database 116, and/or directly from theuser devices 102 by way of the network 108, and/or directly from otherservers 104B, 104C. In various examples, the sponsored content eventdata 306 from the database 116 and/or the servers 104B, 104C is receivedperiodically and/or in batches. As a result, certain sponsored contentevent data 306 at the server 104A may be more current than othersponsored content event data 306.

The sponsored content event data 306 transmitted to the server 104A maybe based on any of a variety of the metadata associated with thesponsored content event data 306. For instance, the server 104A may beconfigured to receive sponsored content event data 306 that correspondsto any sponsored content campaign and sponsored content entity that isoperated by the server 104A. The server 104A may be configured toreceive any other sponsored content event data 306 that may be useful indetermining a sponsored content campaign operated by the system 100.

In operation 1710, the targeted sponsored content platform 114 generatescampaign data of a sponsored content campaign based on the sponsoredcontent event data 306 as generated by the master content groupspresented to individual user devices 102 and as possessed by thetargeted sponsored content platform 114 data on the server 104A. In anexample, the targeted sponsored content platform 114 utilizes thesponsored content event data 306 and estimates sponsored content eventdata 306 that has likely been obtained by the other servers 104B, 104Csince the most recently obtained sponsored content event data 306 fromthe corresponding server 104B, 104C.

In various examples, servers 104B, 104C may provide sponsored contentevent data 306 to the database 116 and/or to the server 104A at any of avariety of intervals or batch criteria, as disclosed herein. In anexample, the servers 104B, 104C provide the sponsored content event data306 at five (5) minute intervals, though it is to be understood that theintervals may be less (e.g., thirty (30) seconds or one (1) minute,etc.) or longer (e.g., one (1) hour or one (1) day, etc.), or may bebased on a quantity trigger, such as when a buffer is filled orotherwise reaches a predetermined level. In absence of receiving theactual sponsored content event data 306 from each server 104B, 104C orthe database 116, the targeted sponsored content engine 114 may estimatethe sponsored content event data 306 that has been generated but nottransmitted.

In the above example with five (5) minute data transmission intervals,the campaign consumption module 302 may calculate an estimated number ofsponsored content event data 306 in a typical batch from a given server104B for the subject sponsored content campaign. For instance, thecampaign consumption module 302 may determine an average number ofsponsored content events 302 in an immediately preceding number ofintervals, such as three (3) intervals, five (5) intervals, ten (10)intervals, and the like, and apply the average as the estimated numberof sponsored content event data 306 over the not-yet-received batch. Theestimate may be prorated given the anticipated time until the receipt ofthe next batch; thus, if two (2) minutes have elapsed since receipt ofthe previous batch, the estimated sponsored content event data 306 maybe reduced to forty (40) percent of the estimate for the pending batch.Relatedly, if a batch is not received as anticipated, the prorating maybe greater than one hundred (100) percent; if six (6) minutes havepassed since the preceding batch, the estimated sponsored content eventdata 306 may be one hundred twenty (120) percent of the average of thepreceding batches.

A variety of alternative or additional modes for estimating thesponsored content event data 306 on the servers 104B, 104C may beutilized. The estimate may be based on an actual number of sponsoredcontent event data 306 over the same time period in a preceding day orpreceding days. The estimates may be based on a preceding time periodrather than a preceding batch, such as one (1) hour, twenty-four (24)hours, and so forth. Additional modes of estimating the not-yet-receivedsponsored content event data 306 are contemplated.

In operation 1712, the campaign consumption module 302 compares thecampaign data as generated in operation 1710 against one or morecampaign termination criteria. Termination of a campaign may beasynchronous with the receipt of sponsored content event data 306, suchas from the servers 104B, 104C. The campaign termination criteria mayrelate to terminating the corresponding sponsored content campaignaltogether or suspending the sponsored content campaign temporarily. Thecampaign termination criteria may be based on campaign data directlyrelated to the subject campaign itself or to campaign data related tothe sponsoring entity of the campaign. Thus, a campaign may beterminated based on meeting a campaign termination criterion for thecampaign or the entity, such as by exceeding a monetary budget for thecampaign or entity or by meeting a desired number of sponsored contentevents.

The comparison of the campaign termination criterion may be applied to asuspended campaign to reinstate the campaign. For instance, where acampaign or entity has a daily maximum budget or desired number ofsponsored content events, passage of the time limit may allow thesuspension of the campaign to be lifted. In an example, if a campaign orentity has a daily maximum that was met, the turning of the relevantclock to midnight may result in the campaign consumption module 302lifting the suspension on the campaign or campaigns of the entity.

In operation 1714, following receipt of a batch of sponsored contentevent data 306 that was subject to a previous estimate, the campaignconsumption module 302 may optionally check the actual data 306 againstthe campaign termination criteria and rescind the termination of thecampaign if the campaign was terminated based on an inaccurate estimate.

With respect to the flowchart of FIG. 17, is to be recognized andunderstood that, while the discussion relates to the server 104A, theoperations may apply equally well to all of the servers, asynchronouslyand independently. Thus, each server 104 may function to provision thesame campaign but not be reliant on precisely up-to-date sponsoredcontent event data 306 from every other server 104 in order to terminatethe associated campaign. In that way, servers 104 that may be widelydispersed in different data centers, may fall out of communication withone another, may have unreliable or slow communication channels, andother factors, while still being configured to provide the samesponsored content campaigns accurately.

FIG. 18 is a flowchart for providing a sponsored content campaignutilizing a partition of a database. While the flowchart will bedescribed with respect to the system 100, it is to be understood thatthe flowchart may be implemented on any suitable system.

In operation 1800, the processors 112, such as the may implement thetracking modules 300, track sponsored content event data 306 receivedfrom a user device 102.

In operation 1802, a processor 112 de-duplicates sponsored content eventdata 306 as received, as disclosed herein.

In operation 1804, the transmitter 118 transmits the sponsored contentevent data 306 to the database 116. In various examples, the transmitter118 transmits the sponsored content event data 306 in a batch based on acommon destination partition 400, such as based on a common campaignidentifier and/or a common entity identifier, as disclosed herein.

In operation 1806, the database 116 stores the sponsored content eventdata 306 in a partition 400. In various examples, each sponsored contentevent data 306 is stored in a partition 400 corresponding to at leastone of the sponsored content campaign from which the sponsored contentevent data 306 derives and the partition 400 corresponding to thesponsoring entity corresponding to the sponsored content event data 306.In various examples, the database 116 stores the sponsored content eventdata 306 based on the campaign identifier and the entity identifierassociated with the sponsored content event data 306. The database 116optionally de-duplicates the sponsored content event data 306, asdisclosed herein.

In operation 1808, the database 116 transmits at least some of thesponsored content event data 306 from a partition 400 to the server104A.

In operation 1810, the campaign consumption 306 estimates sponsoredcontent event data 306 not received from the database 116. In anexample, the estimated sponsored content event data 306 is based on datathat has likely been generated but not received from the partition 400of the database 116. In various examples, the database 116 may providethe sponsored content event data 306 at five (5) minute intervals,though it is to be understood that the intervals may be less (e.g.,thirty (30) seconds or one (1) minute, etc.) or longer (e.g., one (1)hour or one (1) day, etc.), or may be based on a quantity trigger, suchas when a buffer is filled. In absence of receiving the actual sponsoredcontent event data 306 from the database 116, the targeted sponsoredcontent engine 114 may estimate the sponsored content event data 306that has been generated but not transmitted.

In the above example with five (5) minute data transmission intervals,the campaign consumption module 302 may calculate an estimated number ofsponsored content event data 306 in a typical batch from the partition400 for the subject sponsored content campaign. For instance, thecampaign consumption module 302 may determine an average number ofsponsored content events 302 in an immediately preceding number ofintervals, such as three (3) intervals, five (5) intervals, ten (10)intervals, and the like, and apply the average as the estimated numberof sponsored content event data 306 over the not-yet-received batch. Theestimate may be prorated given the anticipated time until the receipt ofthe next batch; thus, if two (2) minutes have elapsed since receipt ofthe previous batch, the estimated sponsored content event data 306 maybe reduced to forty (40) percent of the estimate for the pending batch.Relatedly, if a batch is not received as anticipated, the prorating maybe greater than one hundred (100) percent; if six (6) minutes havepassed since the preceding batch, the estimated sponsored content eventdata 306 may be one hundred twenty (120) percent of the average of thepreceding batches.

A variety of alternative or additional modes for estimating thesponsored content event data 306 may be utilized. The estimate may bebased on an actual number of sponsored content event data 306 over thesame time period in a preceding day or preceding days. The estimates maybe based on a preceding time period rather than a preceding batch, suchas one (1) hour, twenty-four (24) hours, and so forth. Additional modesof estimating the not-yet-received sponsored content event data 306 arecontemplated.

In operation 1812, the campaign consumption module 302 compares thecampaign data as generated in operation 1810 against one or morecampaign termination criteria and terminates the sponsored contentcampaign. Termination of a campaign may be asynchronous with the receiptof sponsored content event data 306, such as from the database 116. Thecampaign termination criteria may relate to terminating thecorresponding sponsored content campaign altogether or suspending thesponsored content campaign temporarily. The campaign terminationcriteria may be based on campaign data directly related to the subjectcampaign itself or to campaign data related to the sponsoring entity ofthe campaign. Thus, a campaign may be terminated based on meeting acampaign termination criterion for the campaign or the entity, such asby exceeding a monetary budget for the campaign or entity or by meetinga desired number of sponsored content events.

The comparison of the campaign termination criterion may be applied to asuspended campaign to reinstate the campaign. For instance, where acampaign or entity has a daily maximum budget or desired number ofsponsored content events, passage of the time limit may allow thesuspension of the campaign to be lifted. In an example, if a campaign orentity has a daily maximum that was met, the turning of the relevantclock to midnight may result in the campaign consumption module 302lifting the suspension on the campaign or campaigns of the entity.

In operation 1814, following receipt of a batch of sponsored contentevent data 306 that was subject to a previous estimate, the campaignconsumption module 302 may optionally check the actual data 306 againstthe campaign termination criteria and rescind the termination of thecampaign if the campaign was terminated based on an inaccurate estimate.

With respect to the flowchart of FIG. 18, is to be recognized andunderstood that, while the discussion relates to the server 104A, theoperations may apply equally well to all of the servers, asynchronouslyand independently. Thus, each server 104 may function to provision thesame campaign but not be reliant on precisely up-to-date sponsoredcontent event data 306 from every other server 104 in order to terminatethe associated campaign. In that way, servers 104 that may be widelydispersed in different data centers, may fall out of communication withone another, may have unreliable or slow communication channels, andother factors, while still being configured to provide the samesponsored content campaigns accurately.

FIG. 19 is a flowchart for operating a targeted sponsored contentplatform. While the flowchart is described with respect to the targetedsponsored content platform 114 and the system 100 generally, it is to berecognized and understood that the flowchart is applicable to anysuitable device or system.

In operation 1900, sponsored content event data 306 is received. Inoperation 1902, it is determine if a first file exists related to afirst time period pertinent to the sponsored content campaign, such asone (1) month. In operation 1904, it is checked if the date of the eventdata 306 is past the end date of a most current first file. If so, inoperation 1906, a first file is added or removed so that the start dateof the oldest first file is not later than the date of the event data306 minus ninety (90) days and the end date of the most recent firstfile is at least as current as the date of the event data 306. Inoperation 1908, referring to the condition of operation 1902, a newfirst file is added.

In operation 1910, it is checked if the date of the event data 306 isgreater than a maximum date of a second file corresponding to a secondtime period relevant to the sponsored content campaign. In an example,the second time period is one (1) day. While the flowchart will bediscussed with respect to one day periods in the second files, it is tobe understood that alternative time periods may be utilized and that thetime periods discussed herein may be modified accordingly. In operation1912, if so, a new file corresponding to a new day is added. Inoperation 1914, it is checked if there are more than two (2) secondfiles. In operation 1916, if so, the oldest second file is deleted.

In operation 1918, referring to the negative condition of operation1910, it is checked if the date of the event data 306 exists instatistics of the second file. In operation 1920, if so, statistics forthe targeted sponsored content platform 114 relating to the particularserver 104A that received the event data 306 are computed. In operation1922, the computed statistics replace the previous statistics in thesecond file.

In operation 1924, referring to the negative condition of operation1918, it is checked if the day of the event data 306 is greater than aminimum day in the second file. In operation 1926, if so, a new secondfile corresponding to the day of the event data 306 is created. Inoperation 1928, it is checked if there are more than two (2) secondfiles. In operation 1930, if so, the oldest second file is deleted.

In operation 1932, referring to the negative condition of operation1924, it is checked if the day of the event data 306 is greater than orequal to the start date of the oldest first time period of the firstfile. In operation 1934, if so, statistics for the targeted sponsoredcontent platform 114 relating to the particular server 104A thatreceived the event data 306 are obtained. In operation 1936, a change instatistics from the statistics obtained and the event data 306 iscomputed.

In operation 1938, referring to the negative condition of operation1932, the flowchart terminates.

In operation 1940, statistics related to the event data 306 are added tothe first file. In operation 1942, it is checked if a first file wasdeleted during the operation of the flowchart. In operation 1944, if so,the first files are shifted one (1) first time period for all firstfiles relating to the sponsored content campaign. In operation 1946,statistics are computed for the first files.

In operation 1948, referring to the negative condition of operation1942, the event data 306 is added to the first file. In operation 1950,it is checked if a threshold has been exceeded for sponsored contentevents, such as particular sponsored content events, such as userselections of a sponsored content item 1104. In operation 1952, if not,the flowchart terminates. In operation 1954, if so, statistics relatedto the sponsored content campaign as a whole are computed, such as userselection of sponsored content, a rate at which sponsored content items1104 are generated, and a rate at which the generation of sponsoredcontent items 1104 may be changed. In operation 1956, statistics relatedto a sponsored content item 1104 to which the sponsored content eventdata 306 corresponds are computed, such as user selection of thesponsored content item 1104, a rate at which the sponsored content item1104 is generated, and a rate at which the generation of the sponsoredcontent item 1104 may be changed. In operation 1958, statisticscalculated herein may be stored for later retrieval. In operation 1960,the flowchart terminates.

FIG. 20 is a flowchart for managing a sponsored content campaign with acampaign consumption module 302. The campaign consumption module 302 mayutilize statistics computed herein. While the flowchart is describedwith respect to the targeted sponsored content platform 114 and thesystem 100 generally, it is to be recognized and understood that theflowchart is applicable to any suitable device or system.

In operation 2000, sponsored content event data 306 is obtained. Inoperation 2002, it is determined if a sponsored content campaign existsin a cache or in the database 116 that corresponds to the event data306. In operation 2004, if not, the sponsored content campaign is addedto the cache or the database 116. In operation 2006, the flowchart isterminated.

In operation 2008, referring to the negative condition of operation2002, it is checked if the budget for the sponsored content campaign haschanged relative to the data in the cache or database 116. In operation2010, if so, the budget in the cache is updated based on the new budgetfor the sponsored content campaign. In operation 2012, it is checked ifa status for the sponsored content campaign has changed. The status mayinclude any of a variety of status parameters for the sponsored contentcampaign, such as whether the sponsored content campaign is active orterminated. In operation 2014, if so, the status in the cache for thesponsored content campaign is updated to reflect the changed status forthe sponsored content campaign. In operation 2016, the flowchartterminates.

FIG. 21 is a flowchart for managing a sponsored content campaign with acampaign consumption module 302. The campaign consumption module 302 mayutilize statistics computed herein. While the flowchart is describedwith respect to the targeted sponsored content platform 114 and thesystem 100 generally, it is to be recognized and understood that theflowchart is applicable to any suitable device or system.

In operation 2100, sponsored content event data 306 is obtained. Inoperation 2102, it is determined if a sponsored content campaign existsin a cache or in the database 116 that corresponds to the event data306. In operation 2104, if not, the sponsored content campaign is addedto the cache or the database 116. In operation 2106, the flowchart isterminated.

In operation 2108, referring to the negative condition of operation2002, it is checked if a sponsored content item 1104 is newer than asponsored content item 1104 corresponding to the sponsored content eventdata 306. In operation 2110, if so, statistics for the sponsored contentitem 1104 corresponding to the event data 306 is cleared, statistics forthe new sponsored content item 1104 may be updated, and the sponsoredcontent campaign may be marked for recalculated statistics.

In operation 2112, referring to the negative condition of operation2108, it is determined if a status of the sponsored content item 1104has changed. In operation 2114, if so, it is checked if the status haschanged from inactive or terminated to active. In operation 2116, if so,statistics related to the sponsored content item 1104 may be obtained.In operation 2118, a status of the sponsored content item 1104 may beupdated in the cache. In operation 2120, the flowchart may beterminated.

FIG. 22 is a block diagram illustrating components of a machine 2200,according to some example embodiments, able to read instructions from amachine-readable medium (e.g., a machine-readable storage medium) andperform any one or more of the methodologies discussed herein.Specifically, FIG. 22 shows a diagrammatic representation of the machine2200 in the example form of a computer system and within whichinstructions 2224 (e.g., software) for causing the machine 2200 toperform any one or more of the methodologies discussed herein may beexecuted. In alternative embodiments, the machine 2200 operates as astandalone device or may be connected (e.g., networked) to othermachines. In a networked deployment, the machine 2200 may operate in thecapacity of a server machine or a client machine in a server-clientnetwork environment, or as a peer machine in a peer-to-peer (ordistributed) network environment. The machine 2200 may be a servercomputer, a client computer, a personal computer (PC), a tabletcomputer, a laptop computer, a netbook, a set-top box (STB), a personaldigital assistant (PDA), a cellular telephone, a smartphone, a webappliance, a network router, a network switch, a network bridge, or anymachine capable of executing the instructions 2224, sequentially orotherwise, that specify actions to be taken by that machine. Further,while only a single machine is illustrated, the term “machine” shallalso be taken to include a collection of machines that individually orjointly execute the instructions 2224 to perform any one or more of themethodologies discussed herein.

The machine 2200 includes a processor 2202 (e.g., a central processingunit (CPU), a graphics processing unit (GPU), a digital signal processor(DSP), an application specific integrated circuit (ASIC), aradio-frequency integrated circuit (RFIC), or any suitable combinationthereof), a main memory 2204, and a static memory 2206, which areconfigured to communicate with each other via a bus 2208. The machine2200 may further include a graphics display 2210 (e.g., a plasma displaypanel (PDP), a light emitting diode (LED) display, a liquid crystaldisplay (LCD), a projector, or a cathode ray tube (CRT)). The machine2200 may also include an alphanumeric input device 2212 (e.g., akeyboard), a cursor control device 2214 (e.g., a mouse, a touchpad, atrackball, a joystick, a motion sensor, or other pointing instrument), astorage unit 2216, a signal generation device 2218 (e.g., a speaker),and a network interface device 2220.

The storage unit 2216 includes a machine-readable medium 2222 on whichis stored the instructions 2224 (e.g., software) embodying any one ormore of the methodologies or functions described herein. Theinstructions 2224 may also reside, completely or at least partially,within the main memory 2204, within the processor 2202 (e.g., within theprocessor's cache memory), or both, during execution thereof by themachine 2200. Accordingly, the main memory 2204 and the processor 2202may be considered as machine-readable media. The instructions 2224 maybe transmitted or received over a network 2226 via the network interfacedevice 2220.

As used herein, the term “memory” refers to a machine-readable mediumable to store data temporarily or permanently and may be taken toinclude, but not be limited to, random-access memory (RAM), read-onlymemory (ROM), buffer memory, flash memory, and cache memory. While themachine-readable medium 2222 is shown in an example embodiment to be asingle medium, the term “machine-readable medium” should be taken toinclude a single medium or multiple media (e.g., a centralized ordistributed database, or associated caches and servers) able to storeinstructions. The term “machine-readable medium” shall also be taken toinclude any medium, or combination of multiple media, that is capable ofstoring instructions (e.g., software) for execution by a machine (e.g.,machine 2200), such that the instructions, when executed by one or moreprocessors of the machine (e.g., processor 2202), cause the machine toperform any one or more of the methodologies described herein.Accordingly, a “machine-readable medium” refers to a single storageapparatus or device, as well as “cloud-based” storage systems or storagenetworks that include multiple storage apparatus or devices. The term“machine-readable medium” shall accordingly be taken to include, but notbe limited to, one or more data repositories in the form of asolid-state memory, an optical medium, a magnetic medium, or anysuitable combination thereof.

Throughout this specification, plural instances may implementcomponents, operations, or structures described as a single instance.Although individual operations of one or more methods are illustratedand described as separate operations, one or more of the individualoperations may be performed concurrently, and nothing requires that theoperations be performed in the order illustrated. Structures andfunctionality presented as separate components in example configurationsmay be implemented as a combined structure or component. Similarly,structures and functionality presented as a single component may beimplemented as separate components. These and other variations,modifications, additions, and improvements fall within the scope of thesubject matter herein.

Certain embodiments are described herein as including logic or a numberof components, modules, or mechanisms. Modules may constitute eithersoftware modules (e.g., code embodied on a machine-readable medium or ina transmission signal) or hardware modules. A “hardware module” is atangible unit capable of performing certain operations and may beconfigured or arranged in a certain physical manner. In various exampleembodiments, one or more computer systems (e.g., a standalone computersystem, a client computer system, or a server computer system) or one ormore hardware modules of a computer system (e.g., a processor or a groupof processors) may be configured by software (e.g., an application orapplication portion) as a hardware module that operates to performcertain operations as described herein.

In some embodiments, a hardware module may be implemented mechanically,electronically, or any suitable combination thereof. For example, ahardware module may include dedicated circuitry or logic that ispermanently configured to perform certain operations. For example, ahardware module may be a special-purpose processor, such as a fieldprogrammable gate array (FPGA) or an ASIC. A hardware module may alsoinclude programmable logic or circuitry that is temporarily configuredby software to perform certain operations. For example, a hardwaremodule may include software encompassed within a general-purposeprocessor or other programmable processor. It will be appreciated thatthe decision to implement a hardware module mechanically, in dedicatedand permanently configured circuitry, or in temporarily configuredcircuitry (e.g., configured by software) may be driven by cost and timeconsiderations.

Accordingly, the phrase “hardware module” should be understood toencompass a tangible entity, be that an entity that is physicallyconstructed, permanently configured (e.g., hardwired), or temporarilyconfigured (e.g., programmed) to operate in a certain manner or toperform certain operations described herein. As used herein,“hardware-implemented module” refers to a hardware module. Consideringembodiments in which hardware modules are temporarily configured (e.g.,programmed), each of the hardware modules need not be configured orinstantiated at any one instance in time. For example, where a hardwaremodule comprises a general-purpose processor configured by software tobecome a special-purpose processor, the general-purpose processor may beconfigured as respectively different special-purpose processors (e.g.,comprising different hardware modules) at different times. Software mayaccordingly configure a processor, for example, to constitute aparticular hardware module at one instance of time and to constitute adifferent hardware module at a different instance of time.

Hardware modules can provide information to, and receive informationfrom, other hardware modules. Accordingly, the described hardwaremodules may be regarded as being communicatively coupled. Where multiplehardware modules exist contemporaneously, communications may be achievedthrough signal transmission (e.g., over appropriate circuits and buses)between or among two or more of the hardware modules. In embodiments inwhich multiple hardware modules are configured or instantiated atdifferent times, communications between such hardware modules may beachieved, for example, through the storage and retrieval of informationin memory structures to which the multiple hardware modules have access.For example, one hardware module may perform an operation and store theoutput of that operation in a memory device to which it iscommunicatively coupled. A further hardware module may then, at a latertime, access the memory device to retrieve and process the storedoutput. Hardware modules may also initiate communications with input oroutput devices, and can operate on a resource (e.g., a collection ofinformation).

The various operations of example methods described herein may beperformed, at least partially, by one or more processors that aretemporarily configured (e.g., by software) or permanently configured toperform the relevant operations. Whether temporarily or permanentlyconfigured, such processors may constitute processor-implemented modulesthat operate to perform one or more operations or functions describedherein. As used herein, “processor-implemented module” refers to ahardware module implemented using one or more processors.

Similarly, the methods described herein may be at least partiallyprocessor-implemented, a processor being an example of hardware. Forexample, at least some of the operations of a method may be performed byone or more processors or processor-implemented modules. Moreover, theone or more processors may also operate to support performance of therelevant operations in a “cloud computing” environment or as a “softwareas a service” (SaaS). For example, at least some of the operations maybe performed by a group of computers (as examples of machines includingprocessors), with these operations being accessible via a network (e.g.,the Internet) and via one or more appropriate interfaces (e.g., anapplication program interface (API)).

The performance of certain of the operations may be distributed amongthe one or more processors, not only residing within a single machine,but deployed across a number of machines. In some example embodiments,the one or more processors or processor-implemented modules may belocated in a single geographic location (e.g., within a homeenvironment, an office environment, or a server farm). In other exampleembodiments, the one or more processors or processor-implemented modulesmay be distributed across a number of geographic locations.

Some portions of this specification are presented in terms of algorithmsor symbolic representations of operations on data stored as bits orbinary digital signals within a machine memory (e.g., a computermemory). These algorithms or symbolic representations are examples oftechniques used by those of ordinary skill in the data processing artsto convey the substance of their work to others skilled in the art. Asused herein, an “algorithm” is a self-consistent sequence of operationsor similar processing leading to a desired result. In this context,algorithms and operations involve physical manipulation of physicalquantities. Typically, but not necessarily, such quantities may take theform of electrical, magnetic, or optical signals capable of beingstored, accessed, transferred, combined, compared, or otherwisemanipulated by a machine. It is convenient at times, principally forreasons of common usage, to refer to such signals using words such as“data,” “content,” “bits,” “values,” “elements,” “symbols,”“characters,” “terms,” “numbers,” “numerals,” or the like. These words,however, are merely convenient labels and are to be associated withappropriate physical quantities.

Unless specifically stated otherwise, discussions herein using wordssuch as “processing,” “computing,” “calculating,” “determining,”“presenting,” “displaying,” or the like may refer to actions orprocesses of a machine (e.g., a computer) that manipulates or transformsdata represented as physical (e.g., electronic, magnetic, or optical)quantities within one or more memories (e.g., volatile memory,non-volatile memory, or any suitable combination thereof), registers, orother machine components that receive, store, transmit, or displayinformation. Furthermore, unless specifically stated otherwise, theterms “a” or “an” are herein used, as is common in patent documents, toinclude one or more than one instance. Finally, as used herein, theconjunction “or” refers to a non-exclusive “or,” unless specificallystated otherwise.

What is claimed is:
 1. A system, comprising: a database configured withindividual partitions, one of the partitions corresponding to asponsored content campaign of a social network, the sponsored contentcampaign having a campaign termination criterion; a plurality ofservers, each communicatively coupled to the database, and eachconfigured to implement a portion of the sponsored content campaigncorresponding to one of the partitions, each of the plurality of serverscomprising: a processor, configured to: track sponsored content eventdata received from a user device based on the sponsored content campaignand transmit the sponsored content event data to the database; andterminate the portion of the sponsored content campaign implemented on acorresponding one of the plurality of servers based on a comparison of acombination of (1) the sponsored content event data as received from apartition of the database corresponding to the sponsored contentcampaign and (2) an estimation of sponsored content event data receivedat the database from another server of the plurality of servers to (3)the termination criterion; and wherein the database is configured tostore the sponsored content event data as received from the plurality ofservers in the partition corresponding to the sponsored content campaignupon receipt of the sponsored content event data and provide thereceived sponsored content data to each of the plurality of servers atfixed time intervals.
 2. The system of claim 1, wherein the databasecorresponds to multiple sponsored content campaigns, and wherein one ofthe partitions corresponds to multiple sponsored content campaignsassociated with a sponsoring entity of the sponsored content campaigns.3. The system of claim 2, where the one of the partitions corresponds toall sponsored content campaigns associated with the sponsoring entity.4. The system of claim 2, wherein each sponsoring entity correspondingto at least one of the sponsored content campaigns stored in thedatabase corresponds to a different one of the partitions; and whereineach of the sponsored content campaigns corresponding to the sponsoringentity corresponds to the partition corresponding to the sponsoringentity.
 5. The system of claim 4, wherein each sponsored contentcampaign and each sponsoring entity individually correspond to only oneof the partitions and wherein each partition corresponds to only one ofthe sponsoring entities.
 6. The system of claim 1, the processor isfurther configured to generate a sponsored content group comprising asponsored content item for transmittal to the user device based on thesponsored content campaign and wherein the sponsored content event datais based on the sponsored content item.
 7. The system of claim 6,wherein the processor is further configured to track the sponsoredcontent event data by de-duplicating sponsored content event data thatcorresponds to a single sponsored content event, wherein a duplicatesponsored content event data is not transmitted to the database.
 8. Thesystem of claim 7, wherein the processor is configured to de-duplicatethe sponsored content event data based on at least one of a comparisonbetween sponsored content event data and a comparison between sponsoredcontent event data and an associated sponsored content item.
 9. Thesystem of claim 6, further comprising a campaign consumption modulecoupled to the servers configured to determine if the estimation ofsponsored content event data received at the database from anotherserver of the plurality of servers was accurate and in response todetermining the estimate was inaccurate and the termination criterionwere not met or exceeded, reopening the sponsored content campaign. 10.The system of claim 9, wherein the estimation of sponsored content eventdata is based on sponsored content event data as stored in the database.11. A memory device, the memory device communicatively coupled to aprocessor and comprising instructions which, when performed on theprocessor, cause the processor to: track, from each of a plurality ofservers, sponsored content event data received from a user device basedon a sponsored content campaign and transmit the sponsored content eventdata to a database; and store the sponsored content event data in one ofa plurality of partitions of the database, one of the partitionscorresponding to a sponsored content campaign of a social network;transmit at least some of the sponsored content event data from thepartition to at least some of the plurality of servers at fixed timeintervals; and terminate, individually on at the at least some of theplurality of servers, the sponsored content campaign based on acomparison of a combination of (1) the sponsored content event data asreceived from the partition of the database corresponding to thesponsored content campaign and (2) an estimation of sponsored contentevent data received at the database from another server of the pluralityof servers to (3) campaign termination criterion.
 12. The memory deviceof claim 11, wherein the database corresponds to multiple sponsoredcontent campaigns, and wherein one of the partitions corresponds tomultiple sponsored content campaigns associated with a sponsoring entityof the sponsored content campaigns.
 13. The memory device of claim 12,where the one of the partitions corresponds to all sponsored contentcampaigns associated with the sponsoring entity.
 14. The memory deviceof claim 12, wherein each sponsoring entity corresponding to at leastone of the sponsored content campaigns stored in the databasecorresponds to a different one of the partitions; and wherein each ofthe sponsored content campaigns corresponding to the sponsoring entitycorresponds to the partition corresponding to the sponsoring entity. 15.The memory device of claim 14, wherein each sponsored content campaignand each sponsoring entity individually correspond to only one of thepartitions and wherein each partition corresponds to only one of thesponsoring entities.
 16. The memory device of claim 11, furtherconfigured to generate, from one of the plurality of servers, asponsored content group comprising a sponsored content item fortransmittal to the user device based on the sponsored content campaign,wherein the sponsored content event data is based on the sponsoredcontent item.
 17. The memory device of claim 16, further configured totrack the sponsored content event data by de-duplicating sponsoredcontent event data that corresponds to a single sponsored content event,wherein a duplicate sponsored content event data is not transmitted tothe database.
 18. The memory device of claim 17, further configured tode-duplicate the sponsored content event data based on at least one of acomparison between sponsored content event data and a comparison betweensponsored content event data and an associated sponsored content item.19. The memory device of claim 16, further configured to determine ifthe estimation of sponsored content event data received at the databasefrom another server of the plurality of servers was accurate and inresponse to determining the estimate was inaccurate and the terminationcriterion were not met or exceeded, reopening the sponsored contentcampaign.
 20. The memory device of claim 19, wherein the estimation ofsponsored content event data is based on sponsored content event data asstored in the database.